After undergoing a CT scan, an 80-year-old woman from Russia’s Sakhalin region discovered that she had a 3cm metal needle lodged in the left side of her brain.

Photos of the woman’s CT scan results were recently released by the Sakhalin Ministry of Health, along with a shocking explanation. Taking into consideration the woman’s age, doctors believe that the needle was inserted into her brain by her own parents, soon after her birth. As shocking as that sounds, such practices were not uncommon in war-torn Russia. Parents who could not afford to take care of their babies in difficult wartime conditions inserted thin needles into their brain through the fontanelle – the gap in the skull that gradually closes as the baby grows – to kill them. This method left no trace, as the fontanelle quickly closed, leaving no evidence of the murder weapon.

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Speed skydiving is an extreme sport that requires practicians to jump out of an airplane and try to reach and maintain the highest possible terminal velocity.

Invented in the late 1990s, speed skydiving is recognized as the fastest non-motorized sport on Earth. Competitions begin with skydivers jumping out of an airplane between 13,000ft and 14,000ft (3,962m to 4,267m), then turning 90° from the direction in which the aircraft is traveling, alternately left and right. Next, competitors go into free fall head-first towards the earth, while trying to be as aerodynamic as possible. It is within this stage that they reach the highest speeds. Depending on a variety of factors, including body mass, orientation, and weather conditions, competitors can reach speeds of over 500 km/h (310 mph).

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China’s online store is becoming increasingly dominated by AI-powered clones that never tire of trying to sell you things and can literally work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The Chinese online shopping scene is very different than what we’re used to in the West. Live streaming is by far the most lucrative marketing channel these days, with popular influencers on platforms like Taobao and Douyin able to close massive deals in just a few hours every day. However, these crazy achievements come at a cost for businesses and brands. It takes time and money to train a great online seller, and there is nothing stopping them from reaching an agreement with competitors, leaving you no option but to restart the process. Having camera crews and assistants around during the live stream also adds to the expenditures, and last, but definitely not least, every top influencer has to sleep at some point. That’s where AI-powered avatars come in…

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Russian police are currently on the lookout for a young girl who reportedly stormed out of a restaurant, leaving her date to foot the bill after he asked her to split it evenly.

Handling the bill on a first date has always been a point of contention, as some people believe that men should cover the entire cost, while others are convinced that going Dutch is the only way. Both sides have their arguments, and while online forums are full of endless debates on the subject, there was never really cause for involving the police. Until recently, that is, when one 28-year-old man from Moscow filed a complaint against a woman he went on a date with after she refused to split the bill, leaving him to cover the entire 16,000 rubles ($165) cost.

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The chairman of a large Chinese cleansing product company has been mocked after a video showing him biting into a bar of all-natural soap went viral on social media.

Speaking during an employee meeting, the boss of Hongwei, a well-known cleaning product manufacturer founded in 1952, can be heard doing a presentation of a laundry soap, telling people that it contains no harmful substances, just alkali, animal fat, and milk. To be as convincing as possible, the man takes a bar of soap and starts munching on it, before washing it down with a swig of water. Although The man’s extreme marketing technique was meant to demonstrate the all-natural ingredients, it was actually mocked by a lot of people, with some joking that the soap could be a life-saver during a natural disaster.

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A lack of trust in their romantic partners is pushing a lot of people to use online ‘loyalty testing’ services that flirt with partners and try to get them to cheat.

At the beginning of this year, online ‘loyalty testers’ began trending on Vietnamese social media, and today a simple search yields thousands of results for both paid testers and ones who offer their services free of charge. There are hundreds of them on Facebook alone, a platform that remains very popular in Vietnam, and more than half of them provide the service for free. However, psychologists warn that this type of partner loyalty testing may have unforeseen negative consequences on a relationship.

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A Chinese woman has been charged with fraud after it was revealed that she was employed by 16 different companies at the same time, but she never really showed up for work at any of them.

The woman, identified as Guan Yue (pseudonym) by Chinese media, had reportedly been juggling over a dozen employers and collecting paychecks for at least three years, without actually getting any work done for any of them. She and her husband, who is also a suspect in this case, allegedly kept a very tight record of employers, her exact role at each company, the date she had started working for each of them, and the bank account details provided for the woman’s monthly salary. Guan Yue would constantly be looking for new employers, and when going to new job interviews, she would take photos and send them to current employers as proof that she was meeting with clients. Believe it or not, the fraud worked flawlessly for years, allowing Guan Yue to buy an expensive apartment in Shanghai.

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A Chinese woman recently filed a lawsuit requesting a divorce from her husband of less than a year, claiming that he blackmailed her into the marriage with some sensitive photos.

According to Li Song Song’s lawsuit, she and her husband, Tan Dan, met in May of 2022, at a party. She didn’t pay too much attention to him, but he apparently became obsessed with her, even going to the salon where she worked every day. Because he didn’t give him the attention he craved, Tan allegedly started finding ways of chasing clients away from the salon, just so he could be alone with his love interest. However, Song was less than impressed with his tactics and refused to give in to his advances. In the lawsuit, the woman claims that she saw him as an unreliable and conniving person.

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A 36-year-old former computer programmer and cosplay enthusiast has been getting a lot of attention on Chinese social media for his decision to wear flamboyant Lolita-style dresses and makeup to work every day.

The man, who goes by the name of D-Jiang, has always been fascinated by Lolita and Gothic Lolita fashion, even wearing some female attires at various cosplay events, but for the past two years, he has been wearing his cosplay garments on a daily basis and spending hours every morning putting on his flashy makeup before going to work. His wife, who shares his love for Lolita fashion, not only approves of his unusual dressing style but regularly helps him put on his makeup. D-Jiang said that he doesn’t really care what others think of his unique dressing style, because what’s important is that he likes it.

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Two Chinese workers were recently arrested for “irreparably” damaging a section of the Great Wall of China by smashing through it with heavy machinery to create a shortcut.

China’s Great Wall, one of the very few man-made structures visible from space, was built over several centuries from the third century BC. Long sections of the giant structures are still around today and are protected as heritage sites, but that didn’t stop two ignorant workers from simply smashing through a part of it that just happened to be in their way. The two suspects, a 38-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman, were working near the affected area and got tired of having to go around the wall in order to reach their destination. They decided to extend a gap in the centuries-old structure to then drive their excavator straight through, instead of going around.

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Unable to fight the desire for a phone she could not afford to buy, a Chinese woman ended up stealing a new iPhone by ripping through the anti-theft cord with her teeth at an Apple Store.

The woman, surnamed Qiu, became the talk of the internet in China earlier this month, after the security cameras at an Apple Store in Fuzhou City, China’s Fujian Province, caught her stealing an iPhone in a rather unusual way. Footage that has since gone viral online shows the woman entering an electronics store and heading straight for the smartphone section, where she proceeds to inspect the device on display. She can be seen glancing around furtively to see if anyone else is around, before grabbing an iPhone and starting to chew on the anti-theft cord securing the device to the display stand.

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Videos of people grilling ice cubes and seasoning them with sauces and spices have been doing the rounds on Chinese social media and leaving people with unanswered questions.

Move over, stir-fried stones, it’s time for grilled ice cubes to enjoy their time in the social media spotlight. According to a number of news reports from China, the bizarre street snack was made famous by a short clip shot at a street food stall in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. In it, we can see large ice cubes being cooked on an open grill and seasoned with sauces and spices, before being served on a plate. We can’t see anyone actually eating the dish, but it is apparently very popular on hot summer days, especially since it’s offered as a free treat.

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A Chinese man can consider himself extremely lucky to be alive after being struck by lightning twice in less than five minutes.

The chances of a person being struck by lightning during their lifetime are about 1-in-15,300, which is much lower than it seems, but the chances of getting struck by lightning twice are significantly lower. There is a reason why they say lightning never strikes in the same place twice, And yet, sometimes incredible things happen, like a person getting struck by lightning twice in just 5 minutes. Liu Nan was outside his home in Zunyi, China’s Guizhou Province during a thunderstorm last month, when he saw a white light before losing consciousness and falling to the ground. He barely had time to register what had happened when he saw the bright light again and once again got knocked out.

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A HaiDiLao restaurant in Wuxi, China, has gone viral for launching a shampooing service for loyal customers who want to get the smell of food out of their hair after a meal.

Enjoying a bowl of tasty hotpot is usually an enjoyable experience, but carrying the smell of the food with you in your hair for hours or even days, not so much. Luckily, if the pilot program of one popular hotpot restaurant chain proves successful, hotpot enjoyers across China won’t have to worry about their hair smelling like a kitchen anymore. HaiDiLao, China’s largest hotpot restaurant chain, recently launched a shampooing service at one of its restaurants in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province. The hair salon-like experience is only available to loyal customers who accumulate enough loyalty points, called ‘Lao coins’, by spending enough money at HaiDiLao locations.

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After arguing with his mother about overdue homework, a 10-year-old boy in China ran away from home and straight to the local police station to complain and beg to be put into an orphanage.

Chinese media recently reported a bizarre incident that took place in Chongqing. CCTV footage shows a young boy storming into the Huixing Police Station in Yubei and being approached by two policemen. They start chatting and the 10-year-old boy tells them that he had been reprimanded by his mother for not completing his homework, so he left the family home to join an orphanage. After a bit of convincing work by the officers, the boy gave them his parents’ contact information, so the police contacted his mother who confirmed their argument about the overdue homework. However, she never imagined that her son would run away from home to join an orphanage because of it.

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