A parasitic fungus, of the genus Ophiocordyceps, uses carpenter ants to complete its life cycle by turning them into zombies. The ant encounters the fungal spores while foraging and the fungus quickly infects and spreads throughout its body, hijacking the insect’s nervous system. It then forces the ant to climb vegetation, where it will clamp onto the underside of a leaf or twig, and then slowly die. The parasite then produces a spore-releasing stalk that sprouts from the cadaver’s head to discharge spores to the ground below, where more hapless ants can get infected.

Until recently scientists were uncertain as to the exact mechanisms or reasons behind this gruesome phenomenon. New research from Penn State University, however, has shed some light on the mystery. The researchers have suggested that the fungus invades muscles fibers throughout the insect’s body, which allows it to control the host’s behavior, but stays away from its brain.

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Mohamed Bzeek, a 62-year-old Muslim immigrant in California, has spent the past two decades caring for terminally ill foster children. These children are neglected by the foster care system, frequently spending the whole of their short lives in state-run hospitals, and rarely get to experience love, hope, and laughter.

About 600 of the 35,000 children monitored by the Los Angeles County’s Department of Children and Family Services fall under the care of the department’s Medical Case Management Services, which serves those with the most severe medical needs. There is a desperate need for loving homes for these children, but Mohamed Bzeek’s is the only foster home in the county known to take them in.

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Drugslab, an educational YouTube Channel funded by a public broadcaster in the Netherlands, has been accused of glamorizing drug use by having three young moderators take drugs on camera and documenting their effects for the viewers.

You can find YouTube tutorials on just about anything these days, and thanks to Drugslab, that includes snorting a line of cocaine and taking LSD or ketamine. In fact, if you want to learn about a certain illegal drug, all you have to do is post a comment, and the three young moderators will do their best to procure it from dealers and try it on camera. They will provide valuable tips on the proper dosing of the drug, how often you can take it, how it affects your heart rate and body temperature, and how it affects your mood. And, since one of the hosts actually takes the drug, you can see the effects yourself.

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The ghost of a child is supposedly haunting a man’s flat, and he now has photos to prove it. Adam Ellis, who lives in New York, achieved viral fame when he started documenting the paranormal activities allegedly occurring in his apartment, on social media. He claims that the ghost initially appeared in his dreams, but has somehow crossed over to the real world.

Adam’s bizarre expereinces began last month when he started documenting his vivid dreams featuring a deformed child, on Twitter. He claimed the child, called David, had a misshapen head and would sit in a green rocking chair at the foot of his bed while he experienced sleep paralysis. The horrifying story quickly captivated the masses and amassed a following of thousands on Twitter, with the initial thread already shared over 50,000 times.

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A tiny off-grid community in Snowflake, Arizona has become a refuge for people suffering from multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS). Often referred to as Environmental Illness, (EI), the condition is a chronic disorder in which exposure to everyday chemicals and technology causes symptoms of varying intensity.

Some of the symptoms of MCS are merely annoying and range from muscle pain to general fatigue. Others are reportedly crippling, such as intense nausea, migraines, sudden panic, and even vertigo. Sufferers claim that their symptoms coincide with exposure to chemicals and technologies around them, such as fragrances, synthetic fabrics, pesticides, and Wi-Fi. Most doctors hesitate to legitimise the condition, citing lack of scientific evidence, calling it a psycho-social condition with acute physical symptoms. For this reason, sufferers, who typically are self-diagnosed, often have difficulty finding medical help for the disease and have to resort to alternative treatments.

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When it comes to bicycles, tuning options are rather limited, especially in the audio department, but a community of teenagers in Palermo, Sicily, has found a way to adapt car stereo systems complete with speakers, subwoofers, amplifiers and even car batteries on their cycles, allowing them to pump out up to 1250W of sound as they cruise the city streets.

Bike tuning has become a trend among music-loving teenage cyclists of Palermo, on the island of Sicily. They spend anywhere between a couple of hundred euros to over 1,200 euros to have their bikes converted into powerful sound systems on wheels.

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Kirill Tereshin, a 21-year-old bodybuilding enthusiast from Russia, decided that getting huge arms the old fashioned way – weightlifting and a protein-rich diet – was too hard and time-consuming, so he cut a few corners by injecting his arms with liters of synthetic oil known as “synthol”.

Like most synthol users, Tereshin started by injecting small quantities of oil directly into his muscles, but quickly realized that in order to keep his biceps and triceps looking huge, he needed to increase the quantity significantly and inject it regularly. He first injected 250 ml of synthol into his arms, but that only made his muscles grow by 1 inch. He wasn’t too happy with that, so now he claims to inject liters of the stuff to keep his arms looking massive. The problem is that the rest of his body is having trouble keeping up.

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A 35-year-old Indian widow claims needles, nails, and syringes come out of her legs, and that she has no idea how they got there. Anusuiya, from a small village in Fatehpur district of Uttar Pradesh in Northern India, says that the bizarre phenomenon has been occurring since 2012 and that she has been in unbearable pain ever since.

Anusuiya Devi claims that she develops small cysts on her legs which eventually burst and discharge a fluid which pushes out a needle or nail. She has encountered difficulties walking, standing, and sitting, but doctors refuse to help her as they believe that she is inserting the needles herself, an accusation that she denies. The widow insists that she has never self-harmed, a claim that is backed up by her brother Awadhesh Kumar, who has lived with her for the last seven years. He does not believe his sister harms herself or does anything to her legs.

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In 2015 researchers from the University of Cincinnati uncovered a Bronze Age tomb in Pylos, in southwest Greece. It belonged to the so-called ‘Griffin Warrior’, a wealthy Mycenaean man, and dates back 3,500 years. Inside archaeologists uncovered a trove of treasure including precious jewels, armor and weapons, and many vessels made from precious metals. One of the most exciting discoveries, however, came in the form of a seemingly insignificant agate stone. It was covered in limestone initially, and it took a year of careful restoration to reveal its true form.

What lay beneath the limestone is a discovery so astounding that it is set to rewrite art history. As the intricate details of the stone’s design began to emerge, the researchers were astonished to discover that they had unearthed a masterpiece. The agate stone was revealed to be a seal, used for stamping an image onto clay or wax. The seal, named the ‘Pylos Combat Agate’, depicts a fierce hand-to-hand battle between tho warriors, with a third one already crumpled on the ground. The scene was meticulously carved on a 3.6-centimetre piece of hard stone, and some of the details are only half a millimeter in size.

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When it comes to getting money, some people will do just about anything, even marry their relatives. Take 25-year-old Mauricio Ossola, from Argentina, who last year married his 91-year-old great-aunt, so he could collect a widower’s pension after she died.

Mauricio moved in with his great aunt Yolanda, in the city of Salta, north-west Argentina, eight years ago, after his parents split up. He, his mother, her brother and his grandmother shared a home with the elderly woman in the neighborhood of Tres Cerritos, and apparently got along very well. So well, in fact, that two years ago Yolanda agreed to marry Mauricio so that he could collect a widower’s pension after she was gone. The then 23-year-old had told the woman that he planned to quit his law studies due to financial constraints , and she assured him that she would do everything she can to make sure he graduates. The young man recently admitted to reporters that he was the one who proposed they get married, and that she accepted. They tied the knot in February of 2015, in what he describes as a “discreet civil ceremony”.

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A 28-year-old Egyptian newlywed woman, is seeking a divorce after only two weeks of marriage because her husband does all of the household chores. Her husband, 31, also runs a successful clothing store, where he employs several staff members and is therefore able to spend most of his time at home. Samar claims that he spends all of that time cleaning and rearranging furniture and that she can no longer handle living with him.

The woman, known only as Samar M., claims that her husband, Mohammad S., is acting like a housewife, and she has grown bored of him. Not only does he do all of the chores, but he refuses to allow her to help at all. She eventually confronted her husband but said that he responded by saying that if she wanted to live in his house, she had to follow his rules.

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Joe Cohen, the young CEO of a California based company called SelfHacked, is looking for a suitable girlfriend, and he is offering $10,000 to whoever points him in the right direction. He is also offering $2,000 to anyone who can introduce him to someone else who can connect him with a woman.

30-year-old Cohen has created a very complex dating advert on his blog, in which he explains why he opted for this unusual way of finding a romantic partner, what he looks for in a woman, as well as details about himself. He also mentions that he will only pay out the reward if he successfully dates the woman for at least four months. That is apparently the amount of time it takes Cohen to get to know someone, and will also protect him against women just looking to earn some money.

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A boxing coach in Houston staged his own death after discovering his wife had hired a hit man to kill him. Ramon Sosa, 50, began working with the FBI and Houston detectives to prove that Maria “Lulu” Sosa, 43, attempted to have him killed. She unknowingly exposed her intentions by attempting to hire a hitman, who, coincidentally, turned out to be a friend and former boxing student of Ramon’s.

In order to prove without the shadow of a doubt that his wife had actually paid someone to have him killed, Sosa had to make himself dead, using makeup, and lying in a shallow grave in the desert with what appears to be a gunshot to his right temple and fake blood dripping on his face and naked torso. He then had to lay low until the police nailed his wife, who apparently laughed when she saw the photo of her dead husband.

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A peculiar beauty trend has taken off in East Asia, and it is proving to be cause for concern. Women are inserting a small set of pegs, called “nose lifter”, into their nostrils in order to make their nose look more European. Western noses are apparently considered more attractive as they’re sharper and pointier.

The Nose Lifter set consists of two curved silicone pegs, measuring two to three centimeters long, and a hook for adjusting. The pegs are inserted into the nostril and then adjusted to a 45-degree angle. The result is an instant nose job without invasive and expensive surgery. The trend started two years ago in South Korea but has since spread across East Asia after being adopted by prominent YouTube beauty vloggers like Raiza Contawi.

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A 44-year-old Thai man reportedly died of hypothermia after going to bed on a cold floor with three electric fans flowing air at him all through the night.

Sobthawee Boonkua, from Tambon Nai Muang, in Thailand’s Chaiyaphum province, had gone to look after his 86-year-old mother, at a relative’s house, and decided to spend the night. Fearing that he wouldn’t be able to get a good night’s sleep due to the heat in the poorly ventilated room, the 44-year-old decided to sleep on the floor and plug in no less than three electric fans to keep cool. Unfortunately, he didn’t take into consideration Chaiyaphum’s drastic drop in temperature at night, and the problems his body would have adjusting to it.

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