Marie McCreadie was just 13 years old when she lost her voice to what doctors could only assume was a freak virus. 12 years later, she was shocked to discover that her sudden loss of voice had been caused by an old coin stuck between her vocal coins, which prevented them from vibrating. This is an old story that is once again getting a lot of attention because of Marie McCreadie ‘s newly published book, “Voiceless”, in which she details the traumatic experience of losing her voice at a young age and regaining it after 12 long years.

When 13-year-old Marie  – then Marie Heffernan – suddenly lost the ability to speak one day in 1972, doctors put it down to a bad bout of bronchitis, but even after recovering from the illness, she still couldn’t utter a sound. They performed all kinds of tests but nothing appeared to be wrong, so they eventually put it down to a virus and told the 13-year-old girl to just go back to school and lead a normal life, as a mute. She was frightened and confused, and her parents didn’t really know how to handle things in the beginning either. Luckily, Marie and her friends started finding new ways of communicating, like passing written notes to each other, which was fun and made getting used to a voiceless life easier. Things got worse as time went by and her voice didn’t recover, but the other children’s reactions were nothing compared to the treatment she got from her teachers.

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Kong Zhenlan, a 71-year-old woman from China’s Shanxi Province, has dedicated the last four decades of her life to adopting and raising orphaned children, making sure that they had food on the table and got access to education.

Even though she could barely afford to support herself on a modest income, Kong Zhenlan couldn’t bear to walk by the orphanage in Jixian County every day and see so many children struggling in abhorrent poverty. One day, she stopped by and picked one of the orphans in her arms; that’s when she knew she had to to something to make their life better. The modest woman started adopting these abandoned children and raising them as her own. Over the last 47 years, she has adopted 45 orphans, some of whom grew up to become doctors and lawyers.

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A Maryland man trying to raise awareness about the confusing nature of expiration dates on consumer products ate expired food for a whole year and lived to tell the tale.

Scott Nash got the idea for his unusual experiment began three years ago, when he did something most of us wouldn’t even consider – he ate a yogurt that was six months past his expiration date. The “staunch environmentalist” and owner of MOM’s Organic Market, a D.C.-are grocery store chain, had forgotten the yogurt in the fridge of his old cabin in Virginia in the Spring and only found it again when returned in the Fall. By that time it was already half a year past its expiration date, but that didn’t stop him from mixing it with his smoothie and chugging it down. It didn’t taste funny and he didn’t experience any health problems after consuming it. That got him thinking about the way companies use expiration dates nowadays.

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A Chinese man who recently turned up at a hospital in Yunnan Province with a swollen eyelid and excruciating headache was shocked to learn that his condition was caused by several pieces of wood stuck in his brain.

The 41-year-old man, surnamed Zhou, told doctors that he first realized something was wrong about two months ago, when an old scan on his right eyelid became swollen and his occasional headaches started getting worse. Unable to deal with the pain, he finally went to the First People’s Hospital in Yunnan Province for treatment, where a computerized tomography scan revealed that he had several pieces of wood with a combined length of 11 cm stuck in his brain. Asked how on Earth he had ended up with so much would deep inside his skull, Zhou recalled an accident that had occurred half a decade prior.

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Peter, a one-year-old cocker spaniel from Sheffield, in the UK, has earned the nickname “Fainting Pete” due to his bizarre habit of suddenly stiffening and falling over whenever he gets to excited or nervous.

Peter’s owners, Emma Clayton and Oliver Broomhead, adopted him from a family who could no longer look take care of him. They were told that the adorable pooch had been “fainting” ever since he learned how to walk, and despite seeing several veterinarians about his bizarre behavior, no one has been able to figure out what’s causing it. The English couple said that it occurs every time Peter sees ducks, enjoys his walks a bit too much or gets scared. Sometime he’ll just freeze and fall over for no apparent reason which lead doctors to believe that he is suffering from a rare neurological condition, although no one can say for sure.

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Sheila, a Golden retriever mix from Buenos Aires, Argentina, has melted the hearts of millions around South America after it was reported that she has been patiently waiting outside a local police station ever since her owner was arrested there, over a year ago.

The loyal dog reportedly showed up outside the police station in 25 de Mayo, a small town in Argentina’s Buenos Aires province, soon after her owner was brought in on charges of assault, last year. Staff there believe that she must have followed the patrol her owner was in, but one thing is for sure, once she arrived, she never left. It didn’t take long for the officers to notice her presence, and some of them started bringing her food to gain her trust. Sheila was cautious at first, but today she depends on the policemen for sustenance, sleeps inside the station at night, and sometimes accompanies her carers on patrols. But she always comes back to the station to wait for her master.

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A 62-year-old Russian woman recently learned that the acute pain she had lived with for over two decades was being caused by a surgical clamp forgotten inside her body after a cesarean.

Ezeta Gobeeva, a pensioner from Russia’s North Ossetia region, had been complaining of an acute abdominal pain ever since she underwent a C-section operation in 1996, but doctors always blamed it on liver problems and did nothing but prescribe painkillers. The woman claims that she was only recently granted an X-Ray, after repeatedly complaining that the medication only helped numb the pain. The investigation revealed that the pain was caused by a surgical clamp lodged in her abdomen, which Gobeeva assumed must have been forgotten in her body by doctors who performed a cesarean operation 23 years ago.

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When the Kesharwani family in Jabalpur, India, decided to expand their home back in 1994, they pondered what to do about the giant fig tree growing in their garden. Rather than cut it down, they decided to build a four-storey house around it.

Today, the Kesharwanis’ residence is one of the most stunning sights in Jabalpur – a concrete villa with a giant tree trunk growing through its multiple stories and thick branches coming out through the windows, walls and roof. Yogesh Kesharwani, whose parents built the house 25 years ago, said that the fig tree is about 150 years old but still blossoms into leaves and fruits every year. Even though they have to navigate around its thick trunk when moving through the house, the Kesharwanis have gotten used to it and even grown to consider it a member of the family.

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John Low, a 60-year-old Singaporean diving instructor, spent four days and three nights drifting in the South China Sea with nothing but a small buoy and a useless backpack, after his boat was capsized last month.

On May 4th, John Low was getting ready for a leisurely dive off the coast of Tioman Island, in the South China Sea, when a strong wave hit his anchored boat and threw him into the water. Before he even could even realize what had happened, the boat, started taking water and eventually sank. All John could retrieve was a ring buoy and his backpack, but he wasn’t too worried at first, as he figured he could swim his way back to land. However, try as he might, he couldn’t fight the currents, which constantly pushed him out into the open sea. By 10 pm, he could no longer see the shore, and he started panicking. For the next four days, he was all alone, with no food and potable water.

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A Chinese animal lover who took in hundreds of stray dogs over the last two years is struggling to make ends meet despite having a stable job and his own business. He has accumulated a debt of 600,000 yuan ($87,000), but he refuses to give up on his four-legged friends.

Up until two years ago, Zhang Kai, a 41-year-old man from Chengdu, China, had a peaceful, comfortable life. He was the manager of a state-owned company and had just opened his own travel agency. But everything changed when his 13-year-old dog, which he had raised since 2003 suddenly died. The tragic event left a void in his life, and somehow made him pay more attention to the countless strays in his city in need of a home. At first, he took in two of them and raised them in his travel agency office, but before he knew it he was taking care of eight strays. Things just snowballed from there, and today he is struggling to take care of 260 dogs, relying solely on bank loans and donations.

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An 11-year-old boy from Xinxiang city, China’s Henan province, has been praised for taking on the mission of saving his father’s life by eating as much as he possibly can.

Lu Zikuan’s father was diagnosed with leukemia seven years ago and has been treated with medication ever since. However, last August his health started deteriorating drastically and doctors informed him that his only option was a life-saving bone marrow transplant. After screening members of his family for possible matches, they found that the only viable donor was Zikuan, who was 10-years-old at the time. Despite his young age, the primary school student was eager to go under the knife to save his father’s life. But there was one big problem, he weighed only 30 kg, and doctors told the family that they wouldn’t operate on him unless he gained at least 15 kg more. So in March of this year he started stuffing his face with as much fatty food as possible.

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Tetsuya, an 84-year-old retired chemistry teacher with no real interest in fashion, managed to become somewhat of a style icon after letting his grandson dress him up for a photo shoot.

It all started last month, when Naoya Kudo went home to Akita Prefecture to visit his grandfather, Tetsuya, during Japan’s Golden Week holiday. During their reunion, Naoya asked his grandfather if he’d be willing to model some fresh designer clothes for a couple of offbeat fashion photo shoots, and the 84-year-old accepted. It gave them a chance to spend some quality time together and have some pure unadulterated fun, but none of them imagined the results of their photo shoots would become a social media success story.

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Lance Wooton, a 32-year-old IT supervisor from Kentucky, has has made a worldwide name for himself thanks to his incredibly luscious, waist-long beard.

Wooton started growing his facial hair in June of 2014 to compliment a pirate costume he planned on wearing for Halloween. By the time October came around, he had already grown an impressive-looking beard, which happened to draw the attention of a friend who owned a local barbershop and invited him to check out some beard care products. He didn’t even know such things existed, but he bought some, used them on his beard and posted photos of the results on social media. That’s how he got invited to his first beard competition, where he was introduced to a tight community of passionate beard growers. He was instantly hooked, and decided to keep growing his beard, even though everyone around him told him to shave it off. Today, his luscious facial hair measures 2.5-feet and reaches down to his waist.

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A Hong Kong woman reportedly suffered a case of short-term amnesia which made her unable to remember anything from the last 10 years of her life, after straining too hard on the toilet due to constipation.

We all know that straining too hard when trying to move bowels can have a host of side effects, including minor ones like dizziness and headache, and life-threatening ones like strokes. However, according to anecdotal evidence that went viral on Chinese social media last week, we can now add short-term amnesia to the list of possible symptoms associated with over-straining on the toilet. Experts say that while unlikely, this side-effect may be explained by the lack of oxygen to certain parts of the brain.

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A Chinese man has been labeled a victim of abuse after being slapped in public a whopping 52 times by his girlfriend, who was apparently upset that he hadn’t bought her a new smartphone for Chinese Valentine’s Day.

While most Chinese couples celebrated May 20th, or “520” – one of the Asian country’s three yearly ‘lovers’ days’ – in a romantic way, one pair in Sichuan province decided to cause a shocking scene instead. Videos captured by nearby surveillance cameras as well as passers-by and later shared on social media showed a young woman slapping her boyfriend in the street while viciously scolding him for allegedly failing to buy her a new smartphone as a gift. Although the footage doesn’t show all the slaps, police later confirmed that the man endured no less than 52 of them under the shocked gazes of strangers gathered to witness his humiliation.

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