James Sakara, the pastor of a Zambian Christian church, was found dead after asking to be buried alive in the ground so he could come back to life in three days’ time, like Jesus…

To say that 22-year-old James Sakara was overconfident in his ability to emulate the resurrection of Jesus Christ would be an understatement. Be that as it may, the pastor of the Zion Church in the Zambian town of Chidiza managed to convince his congregation that he could in fact come back to life after three days, just like the Son of God. He somehow got three members of his Church to assist him by digging a shallow grave, tying up his hands, and burying him alive, only instead of coming back to life after three days, Sakara was found dead by members of the Zion Church curious to see why their leader hadn’t fulfilled his promise.

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Georgian media recently released disturbing footage of over 500 sheep killed by a single lightning strike while grazing on a mountain pasture in Ninotsminda, southern Georgia.

According to news reports, on August 9th, Nikolay Levanov, a sheep owner from the village of Tambovka, received a distressing phone call from his sheepherder telling him that over a hundred of his sheep had been killed in a thunderstorm. What Levanov didn’t know was that along with his own flock, nearly 400 other sheep had been killed by the same lightning strike. Luckily, the sheepherder himself had only been knocked unconscious by the lightning and eventually recovered.

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A Texas man who sustained injuries after being involved in a bar fight two years ago sued the bar owner for overselling him alcohol and was awarded $5.5 million in a default judgment.

Daniel Rawls claims that after drinking at the La Fogata restaurant, in Andrews, on May 21, 2019, he and another patron, Robert Henrickson, got into an altercation in the parking lot of the restaurant. As a result, Rawls suffered head injuries that his lawyer claimed could have been avoided if the restaurant hadn’t continued serving alcohol to both men, who were visibly inebriated. In the complaint, La Fogata’s owner and bartender were accused of allowing the two men to drink excessively and leave the restaurant together, as well as not calling an ambulance after Rawls was injured.

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Zhong Quanbin, a young teacher at Taiwan’s Shude University of Science and Technology, has been getting a lot of attention online thanks to his incredibly detailed anatomical blackboard drawings.

Using only a ruler and simple pieces of chalk, Zhong Quanbin can produce some truly astonishing anatomical blackboard drawings. From detailed depictions of the entire human bone structure to individual organs like the human eye seen from various angles, it’s clear to see that the young teacher has a very solid understanding of human anatomy, as well as an innate talent for drawing. It’s this unique combination that has won Zhong legions of fans in several Asian countries.

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The peacock mantis shrimp (Odontodactylus scyllarus) is recognized as having the fastest punch in the entire animal kingdom, with an acceleration comparable to a .22mm bullet fired out of a handgun.

One of several known mantis shrimp species, the O. Scyllarus is native to the seabed of the Indo-Pacific, from Guam to South Africa. It is an agile and active predator, using its club-shaped appendages to smash its prey, which mainly consists of other crustaceans, gastropods, and bivalves. The peacock mantis shrimp is known as a ‘smasher’ for a reason, as it uses its appendages to repeatedly deliver blunt force to its victims until it breaks their exoskeletons in order to reach the soft tissue underneath. Every blow travels at a speed of over 50 miles per hour (80 km/h), the fastest recorded punch of any living animal.

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Doctors performing a colonoscopy on a 59-year-old patient were shocked to discover a small ladybug crawling inside the man’s intestine.

I’m no doctor, but I imagine that one of the last things you’d expect to find in someone’s colon while performing a colonoscopy is a living ladybug. How the insect got inside the man’s intestines is one thing, but how on Earth does a ladybug make it into the colon alive? That was the question puzzling the team that discovered the ladybug during a routine colonoscopy in 2019. While exploring a 59-year-old man’s colon in search of scarring, ulcers or tumors, they noticed a live ladybug crawling on the inside of the man’s intestine.

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Imagine enjoying a hot cup of java or your favorite soft drink in the middle of a pond filled with beautiful koi fish that you can actually hand-feed and you get an idea of what Vietnam’s koi fish cafes are like.

When it comes to fish-themed cafes, Ho Chi Minh City has a leg up on pretty much every other city in the world. Back in 2018 we featured Amix Coffee, a flooded cafe that allowed patrons to enjoy their favorite drinks with dozens of small fish literally at their feet, but this was apparently not the only cool fish-themed venue in town. In fact, the bustling metropolis apparently has about a dozen cafes that double as koi ponds, where the popular fish swim among patrons.

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Ram Kand Mool, a drum-shaped tuber that has been sold as a hearty snack on Indian street corners for at least several decades remains a mystery to scientists, as no one can figure out what plant produces it.

Indian botanists developed an interest in ram kand mool in the 1980s, after trying and failing to find out the origins of the almost paper-thin snacks cut out of giant reddish tubers by street vendors. None of them were willing to reveal the plant that produced it, and those that did gave conflicting answers. Some claimed that it was a root, others that it was the stem of a plant, but most either refused to answer or claimed that they bought the tubers from third parties and genuinely didn’t know the source. Stranger still was the fact that not even science could provide a clear answer to the botanists’ questions.

Ram kand mool is often advertised as the only food source of Lord Ram when he was exiled to forests along with his wife Sita and brother Lakshman, and vendors claim it can cool you down during the summer, quench both hunger and thirst, and provide all sorts of medicinal relief. It is served with all sorts of seasonings, from chili and salt, to lime and sugar. It’s cut and served as very thin slices out of tubers that can reportedly weigh up to 300 kilograms.

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Canelo, a pit bull suffering from a debilitating medical condition that forbids him from moving normally, may just have the best dad in the world.

The heartwarming story of Canelo and his owner was shared on TikTok by the man’s daughter, Jooseline. She posted a touching video explaining that her pet dog was suffering from canine hypertrophic osteodystrophy, a condition that drastically restricts his mobility, making it painful for him to run with the family’s three other pit bulls. Sadly, hanging out with his brothers and running through the fields was his favorite pastime, so in order to let Canelo enjoy the experience despite his condition, Jooseline’s dad routinely picks him up and runs with him in his arms alongside the other dogs.

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Indonesian media recently reported the bizarre story of a young man who ended up marrying both his fiancée and his ex-girlfriend at the same time, after the latter crashed his wedding ceremony.

Late last month, 20-year-old Korik Akbar, from the regency of Central Lombok in the Indonesian state of West Nusa Tenggara, was in the process of marrying his betrothed, when his ex-girlfriend burst in asking that she marry him as well, as his second wife, claiming that she couldn’t get over their relationship. Instead of making a scene, Akbar’s fiancée, Kotimah, actually agreed to the proposal and told the young man that she accepted his former fling as his second wife. So he ended up marrying the both of them in the same ceremony.

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The Bass River Valley of South Gippsland, in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria is home to the world’s largest earthworms, which can grow up to 6.6 feet in length.

The giant Gippsland earthworm (Megascolides australis) is one of the world’s most elusive and fascinating creatures, able to survive in an environment completely changed by its human inhabitants and rarely showing up above ground. These enormous earthworms can only be found in a 150 square mile area, a habitat once blanketed by dense forests but that has now been completely converted to farmland. Apart from its size, this ability to survive in a landscape in which the native vegetation has been entirely removed is another fascinating trait of the giant Gippsland earthworm.

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Buying works of art can become an expensive habit, but what if you didn’t have to buy the artworks and instead lease them for however long you wanted? That’s the premise of an ingenious Japanese business that lets people rent paintings.

Casie is an innovative service that connects painters and art lovers in a whole new way. Instead of brokering the sale of artworks it offers clients the possibility of leasing them by the month. It sounds a bit strange, maybe because it just hasn’t been done before, but if people can rent designer clothes and expensive jewelry, why can’t they do the same with art? Apparently, this model benefits both artists, who are able to generate more revenue from their works in the long term, and clients, who get to keep the paintings until they get bored of them and decided to swap them for new ones.

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Welwitschia is a fascinating plant that can not only survive for several thousands of years, but it can do so in one of the most inhospitable environments on the planet, the Namib Desert.

Named after Austrian botanist Friedrich Welwitsch, who discovered it in Angola in 1859, Welwitschia is actually called ‘tweeblaarkanniedood’ in Afrikaans, which translates to “two leaves that cannot die”. That’s a surprisingly accurate name for a plant that grows only two leaves and can survive thousands of years in the world’s oldest desert. Some parts of the Namib Desert receive less than two inches of precipitation a year, but that’s apparently all Welwitschia needs to survive, thanks to its extremely “efficient, low-cost genome”.

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Kagami Numa is a mythical Japanese lake that turns into a giant eye every spring, during the thawing process, hence its nickname, Dragon’s Eye Lake.

Located near the summit of Mount Hachimantai in north-eastern Japan, in the middle of a dense forest, Kagami Numa doesn’t look much different than the many other volcanic lakes in the area, most of the year. But for about a week – ate May to early June – it turns into a giant blue eye that inspired its intriguing nickname, Dragon’s Eye Lake. The unique appearance of the circular lake during this one week has inspired a legend of two dragons in love that chose this body of water as their meeting spot.

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A tree seemingly growing out of a pristine white salt island in the heart of the Dead Sea isn’t something you’d expect to see when visiting the world’s saltiest body of water, and yet that’s exactly the sight you’re treated to near the beach of Ein Bokek.

With a salt concentration over 10 times that of the ocean, the Dead Sea is incapable of sustaining any plant or animal life, so come there’s a tree growing there, and on an island made of salt, of all places? Within swimming distance of the beach in Ein Bokek, an Israeli resort near Arad, lies the iconic Dead Sea Salt Island, a surreal natural formation made of dazzling white salt and surrounded by turquoise water. At its center are a pool of shallow, inviting water, and a tree that has no place being there. And yet…

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