For the past week or so, the Mahalakshmi temple in Puttenahalli, India, has become the scene of a most peculiar sight – a mongrel living near a bakery opposite the temple wakes up early in the morning and starts circling the holy building, sometimes well into the evening. Nobody can explain the canine’s bizarre behavior, but his story has been attracting a lot of attention,  and more and more people are showing up to watch him do his rounds, resulting in traffic jams on surrounding streets.

9News India reports that the dog starts circling the Mahalakshmi temple at about 4 a.m. every day, stopping at the south-eastern side of the building after each round. There, he barks a few times and then proceeds to circle the building once again. This goes on until about 10 a.m., when the dog returns to his home at the nearby bakery, but according to The Hindu, he sometimes circles the temple for much longer, even until evening. The dog never seems bothered by people visiting the temple or simply blocking his path, either. He simply walks around them and continues his round until he comes full circle.

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About a month ago, a Russian vigilante wearing a Batman costume declared war on drug dealers doing business in the Khimki area outside Moscow. So far, he claims to have captured around 40 criminals.

It all started at the beginning of June, when a taxi driver witnessed a man dressed as Batman entering a building that later proved to be a drug den, in the middle of the night. He told police that he soon started hearing people screaming and things being thrown around inside. The mysterious man then walked out, threw some sort of fire bomb at the ground and disappeared into the shadows. A few minutes later, law enforcement arrived at the scene, entered the building and walked out with two men in handcuffs. The witness, identified only as Slava, said the men were beat up pretty badly.

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Dog owners feeling guilty for leaving their pets alone at home for too long will son be able to take comfort in the fact that at least the animals won’t be bored. They’ll be too busy changing TV channels and enjoying their favorite shows thanks to the world’s first dog-friendly remote control.

UK-based pet food brand Wagg apparently surveyed a number of pet owners and found that 91% of respondents said their canine friends regularly watch TV with them. Inspired by this interesting finding, the company teamed up with Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas, an expert in animal computer interaction design at the University of Central Lancashire, to create the world’s first remote control for dogs. They came up with a prototype for the ingenious device which is currently in a trial and analysis period.

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It’s quite natural for lizards and snakes to lie on hot rocks in the scorching sun, because they have to thermoregulate, but when middle-aged and elderly women in the Chinese city of Xi’an started doing it, people started raising their eyebrows in surprise.

It turns out lying on large stone boulders in the hot sun is this year’s summer health trend among the women of Xi’an. Elderly and middle-aged women can be seen hugging rocks or simply lying on them with towels on their faces all around the city, from parks to squares and pretty much wherever else large, sun-heated rocks can be found.

At first, people thought the women were engaging in some mysterious artistic performance, but local reporters approached them, they said it was a traditional medical treatment to help them cure various illnesses. One woman, identified only by her surname, Lo, said that she started lying on hot rocks to treat her synovitis and stiff muscles, after a relative suffering from similar ailments did it for an extended period of time and got cured. Apparently, the best time to practice laying on rocks is between 3 and 4 p.m., when the sun burns the hottest.

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If you’re looking of ways to make vacuuming the house less of a chore, this ingenious combination between a harmonica and a vacuum cleaner may be the coolest thing you’ll see today.

Vacuuming a harmonica may just become the house-cleaning trend of 2016, but it all started just a few days ago, completely by accident. Japanese Twitter user @CelloMetalGirl was the first to upload one a video of the unusual activity, with the caption “I laughed to death”. As it urns out, the girl’s father was vacuuming the house when he accidentally hit an old run-of-the-mill harmonica with the vacuum brush and… Magic happened.

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Omnidirectional wheels have been around for a while, but they are mostly used on utility vehicles like forklifts. London-based inventor William Liddiard has created a special set of omni wheels that can be bolted on to any car, allowing it to move in any direction, spin 360 degrees and slide into a parallel park with ease.

“Unlike other omni capable wheels, my wheels do not require the vehicle to be built around them. This is a world first bolt-on application for anything with wheels,” Liddiard wrote in the description of a YouTube video he uploaded to show how his invention works on an old Toyota Echo. “They are stronger, faster, and more accurately controlled than prior art. They can take a beating. The tires can have the same build characteristics (siping, grooves, rubber compounds etc.) as regular tires. Now you can drive in all directions, and turn on the spot, when needed.”

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Arya Permana, a 10-year-old boy from Indonesia, has been dubbed the fattest child in the world after it was reported that he weighs a whopping 192 kilograms. His heavy frame has left him unable to walk, attend school or find cloths that will fit him.

Arya, from the village of Cipurwasari in Indonesia’s Arawang Regency, started gaining weight rapidly at the age of two, when his parents noticed that he was much larger that his older brothers had been at his age. In the beginning, they were happy about his fuller figure and considered him a healthy child, but as the years went by and his appetite and weight got out of control, they realized something was wrong with the boy and he needed medical attention. They took Arya to several doctors, but none of them found his weight abnormal and told the parents to take him to a bigger hospital if they thought he needed help.

“They asked us to take him to better hospitals if we think he needs medical attention. I have spent money beyond my capacity on his treatment but I am a poor farmer and making ends meet is a big task for me,” the boy’s father, Ade, said. “I am exhausted now and I cannot afford expensive hospitals. But I hope to see my son perfectly normal one day.”

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A heartwarming 3-minute video showing a young girl guiding her blind father to work on a coconut plantation in the Philippines recently went viral on Facebook and changed the lives of its protagonists.

The video shows five-year-old Jenny, walking barefoot as she guides her blind father, Pepe “Dodong” Nelson, around a coconut farm, using a small wooden stick. She can be seen helping him avoid other people as they make their way through the coconut trees and guiding him to his lunch of crackers and water. With her help, Nelson manages to climb around 60 trees every day, for a pay of around 300 pesos ($6), barely enough to put food on their table.

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For the past few years, a man from Green Bay, has been threatening to sue big companies who perform background checks on him during the hiring process if they don’t pay him hefty settlements. Believe it or not, his plan is actually working.

Although he’s apparently been at it for years, Cory Groshek’s strategy was recently revealed by Time Warner Cable lawyers filed a motion to dismiss a case filed against the company by Groshek. It claims that within a recent 18-month stretch, Groshek applied to 562 jobs with high-profile companies, without any intention to secure long-term employment. Instead, he merely tried to  to catch companies violating the law during the hiring process, so he could threaten a class-action lawsuit against them and demand settlements.

Documents submitted by the lawyers show that Groshek has used this scare tactic to extract at least $232,000 in settlements from various businesses across the United States. The man himself has allegedly admitted to threatening over 40 companies with class-action lawsuits for technical violations of the federal law, specifically running a background check on him without properly informing him about it.

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China’s serious video-game addiction problem is once again in the news, after a 19-year old boy was found passed out in some bushes with badly infected feet, after a 6-day gaming marathon at an internet cafe.

Police discovered the avid gamer collapsed near some train tracks. They quickly called an ambulance as the man’s feet seemed badly infected and were giving off a strong putrid smell. When he woke up briefly to ask for some water, he told police officers that he had spent all his money playing video games and had not eaten or slept in several days. When he couldn’t afford to play anymore, he just started wondering around the city and eventually passed out from fatigue.

After identifying the man, local police contacted his father, who initially didn’t want to know anything about his son. It turns out all he did was play video games on the internet, and had run away from home 10 days prior. However, after hearing about the state he was found in, the man asked police to bring the teen home. Read More »

A 54-year-old man from Jilin, China, is making international headlines for his bizarre exercise routine. Cong Yan claims daily walks with a 40-kilogram rock balancing on his head have helped him lose 30 kilograms in the last three years.

Cong Yan is a familiar, albeit unusual sight in Jilin parks. Every day, he can be seen walking on the narrow pathways, ascending and descending steps alongside other health-conscious Chinese trying to keep in shape. But what sets him apart from everybody else is the heavy-looking block of solid concrete dangling on top of his head.

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Meet Sajad Gharibi, a 24-year-old weightlifter from Iran who has stunned the internet with his impressive physique. Weighing a whopping 345 pounds – most of it sheer muscle – Gharibi is said to be able to lift up to 386 pounds. He certainly looks like a guy you never, ever want to get on the bad side of.

Lucky for us, those who know this mountain of a man say that, despite his grizzly appearance, he is actually a gentle giant with a very big heart. They mean that both literally and metaphorically, I presume. That’s reassuring as he is probably the closest we’ll ever get to seeing a real life The Hulk, and we don’t want him sharing both his looks and short temper.

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In a country where women are not allowed to drive, bumper cars have become an unlikely alternative to real automobiles. Unlike men, most of whom love nothing more than to bump each other when using the popular amusement park attractions, Saudi Arabian women prefer to cruise beside each other while honing their driving skills.

For reasons that are hard to understand in the Western world, women in Saudi Arabia are still forbidden to drive. Despite moves towards rights for women under King Abdullah before his death, current crown prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud recently said that the Saudi community “is not convinced about women driving”. It’s hard to predict if things will ever change in that regard, but in the meantime, Saudi women have found an ingenious way to practice driving – riding bumper cars.

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San Francisco-based startup Impossible Foods might have just achieved the impossible – making plants tastes like meat. Their Impossible Burger is made entirely of plants, but sizzles on the grill, oozes fat and reportedly tastes like a delicious cooked beef patty.

Red meat consumption around the world is at an all time high, but producing high quantities of meat to satisfy demand is not sustainable and it’s already taking a heavy toll on the environment. In recent years, experts have been busy coming up with alternatives to animal meat, like switching to a protein-rich insect-based diet, growing meat in the lab and even artificial meat made from sewage mud. But one San-Francisco company may have discovered a much more viable solution – a mashup of plant-based ingredients that tastes just like real meat. Impossible Foods has been working on an alternative to meat for the last five years, and its soon-to-be-launched Impossible Burger is already receiving high praise for its likeness to beef patties in taste, texture and appearance.

When former Stanford biochemist Patrick Brown founded Impossible Foods, he set his goal on creating a product that would change the world, and the Impossible Burger might do just that. He and his research team have spent years analyzing meat molecules to find out what makes a burger taste, smell and cook the way it does, in the belief that everything animal can be replicated using plant-based compounds. And judging by the testimonies of the few people who have actually sampled this revolutionary burger, Brown was right.

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In what is one of the strangest stories of spousal devotion I’ve ever come across, a woman in China divorced her paralyzed husband, married his best friend, and together they are now taking care of her ex.

Xu Xihan and Xie Xiping, from the Chinese city of Ankang, in China’s Shanxi Province, got married in 1996, and had a daughter the very next year. Their life was happy one, and a few years later Xieping gave birth to a healthy baby boy who brought them even more joy. But tragedy struck in 2002, when Xu Xihan was involved in a terrible accident which left him paralyzed from the waist down. He received 40,000 yuan ($6,000) in compensation, but lost his ability to walk, forever. The man remembers their neighbors kept telling him that his wife was going to live him in just three months, but Xieping proved them all wrong, as years went by and she and the kids remained by his side.

However, Xu wanted her wife to be happy and started pressuring her into divorcing him and finding another man who could take care of her properly. The woman wouldn’t hear of it, though, and kept refusing his request for years. In 2009, Xieping finally gave in to the paralyzed man’s plea to divorce him, and married his colleague and best friend, Liu Zongkui. In 2012, she gave birth to Zonkui’s son, but she never abandoned her ex-husband. Instead, she and Liu began caring for her ex and the kids together.

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