Meet the Dynastor darius darius, a harmless caterpillar with astounding survival skills. In order to avoid being attacked by predators during its pupal stage (when the larvae transform into butterflies or moths), the helpless creature takes on the form of a rather menacing snake!

Native to Trinidad, the shape-shifting D. darius often mimics the head of a Gaboon pit viper, successfully fooling even the toughest of its predators. After it sheds its final layer of skin, the caterpillar enters its pupal stage, and its chrysalis takes the shape of a viper’s head. The transformation lasts 13 days, during which time this mimicry is its only line of defense. To make the appearance even more believable, the scary-looking chrysalis hangs on the underside of forest leaves at a carefully selected angle.

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In a brilliant use of social media, a news show in Panama City gave potholes in the streets their own voices on Twitter. The crew of Telemetro Reporta installed motion-sensitive devices in craters across the city, programmed to tweet authorities every time cars ran over them, until they fixed the problem!

The makers of the show said that they wanted to highlight how horrible the roads of the city had become. Despite having one of the fastest growing economies of Central and South America and a concentration on skyscrapers that earned it the nickname ‘Dubai of Latin America’, Panama City’s streets were pockmarked with holes and ditches that made every commute a nightmare.

“It would seem that in a rush to build a modern city, Panama forgot to take care of its existing streets, creating a contradiction of modern buildings and damaged streets,” the show’s promo declares. “This is not amusing for the people that drive on the streets every day.”

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In a bid to get African youth interested in current affairs, Newz Beat, a Ugandan original news program features ‘rap-orters’ who rap headlines to hip hop beats.

Hip-hop is probably the last thing you’d expect to hear when listening to a news bulletin, which is exactly what makes Newz Beat so intriguing. Yahoo news reports that the show is quite relevant in Uganda, where the press faces lots of problems with censorship, and the youth aren’t too interested in what’s happening around them. A program that features ‘rap-orters’ instead of traditional anchors is actually quite refreshing.

The offbeat show consists of five-minute episodes aired every Saturday on NTV, just before the station’s traditional news bulletin. Each episode covers about four regional and international stories and is recorded in both English and the local language, Luganda. The show is broadcast on air, but since over 90% of Ugandan households don’t have electricity, Newz Beat is also distributed through video halls, where people can get together and watch it.

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A Japanese man and his adorable pet tortoise have become internet sensations after photos of them strolling along the streets of Tokyo went viral. The man – funeral director Mitani Hisao – revealed that the tortoise has been his pet for the past 19 years, taking the place of the child he never had.

Hisao added that the African spurred tortoise was a tiny baby, only five cm in diameter, when he first spotted it in a pet-store window. “I never had any children, but 19 years ago my wife caught the eyes of this little tortoise and felt an instant bond with him,” he said. “I couldn’t leave the store without it.” So they adopted the little creature, named it Bon-chan, and cared for it as they would a child.

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If you’re passionate about breaking high-tech stuff, we may have found the job of your dreams. Believe it or not, a UK-based cell phone comparison website currently has a vacancy for ‘Mobile Phone Destruction Tester’, a part time position that pays £36,500 (nearly $55,00) a year!

The ideal candidate for the job would be someone who loves mobile tech, and has a “long history of destruction, particularly in the field of mobile phones,” the listing on TigerMobiles.com mentions. “We want you to take the latest smartphones and put them through their paces in real world scenarios. Drop them in the bath, stomp them in the mosh pit, accidentally dip them in your Chicken Vindaloo.”

However, candidates would also have to be good with written and spoken English, and familiar with using computers, because “there has to be some boring part to the job.”

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In 2013, Chinese surgeon Xiaoping Ren conducted a historic surgery: he basically sliced the head off one mouse and attached it to the body of another. Believe it or not, the grotesque creature he had created actually survived for a few minutes – it opened its eyes, and even managed to breathe on its own. The operation was hailed a success, and since then, the eccentric doctor and his team have conducted head transplants on over 1,000 mice!

With each operation, Dr. Ren has tried to perfect his procedure by using tiny tubes to carry oxygenated blood from the mice’s brains to their new bodies. After over 1,000 transplants, the results are not very encouraging – after the procedure, the mice open their eyes, breathe on their own and even show signs of movement, but so far, every one of them has died within a day. That sounds scary and even unethical, but Dr. Ren is so motivated by his modest success that he wants to continue experimenting on other creatures. According to a Wall Street Journal report, he’s planning to conduct head transplants on monkeys next, hoping to create the first head-transplanted primate that can live and breathe on its own, ‘at least for a little while’. Read More »

Saying 50-year-old armwrestler Jeff Dabe has big hands would be a huge understatement! Dabe’s bear paws are so big that he has been compared to cartoon characters like Popeye and Wreck-It Ralph.

A year and a half ago, we introduced you to Denis Cyplenkov, a Ukrainian strongman and professional armwrestler, who at the time we thought had the world’s largest hands. We still think they’re huge for a human, but they pale in comparison to Jeff Dabe’s. His forearms are 49 cm in circumference and his palms look like they could crush a man’s skull like a watermelon. Luckily, Jeff only uses his enormous guns for arm wrestling and operating heavy equipment.

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A lovestruck 20-year-old recently made headlines after he was caught sneaking into an examination hall dressed like a girl. When questioned, Ayan Zhademov confessed that he was trying to take the exam on behalf of his 17-year-old girlfriend!

Ayan revealed that his lady friend was totally stressed over the Unified National Testing, an exam used for college admissions in Kazakhstan. He tried to calm her down and encourage her, but positive talk didn’t work. So he decided to impersonate her and take the exam in her place.

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‘Thync’ is a new wearable device that makes use of electroencephalography to measure the brain’s electrical activity, and modify neuron activity. Simply put, it has the ability to change your mood!

All you need to do is attach the device to your forehead and it will instantly shift your state of mind. A corresponding iPhone app lets you pick the type of mood you want to experience, and even adjust the intensity. You could choose to become happy, relaxed, focused, or energised. And the best part is, you get to do it without using drugs, energy drinks, or alcohol.

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A group of football fans in Zhenzhou, China, have literally taken football to new heights by building their very own 900-square-meter pitch on the roof of a car park building, right in the city center.

XuGong, the mastermind behind this impressive undertaking, told Chinese media that he has been a huge football fan since childhood, but growing up in Zhengzhou city, he always had problems finding a venue to practice his favorite sport. The only available one was located too far away and he could only use it once a week. After nearly a decade of frustration, Xu decided to fix the problem by building a pitch of his own. He convinced his friends and fellow football fans to pool all their savings into building their very own football field, but finding a piece of land in their busy city was a huge challenge. After months of searching, they came up with the genius idea on the roof of a building.

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Indian businessman Bhanwarlal Raghunath Doshi made headlines last weekend for publicly renouncing his wealth to become a monk. The ‘plastics king’ of Delhi gave up his 600-crore ($100 million) business empire during a ceremony on Sunday, becoming the 108th disciple of Jain guru Shri Gunratna Surishwarji Maharaj.

Doshi’s decision wasn’t an impulsive one: Jain lectures have been drawing him to spirituality since 1982. But his family – his wife, two sons, and a daughter – were always reluctant to let him go. They finally relented last year, allowing Doshi to fulfil his long-time dream of becoming a monk. His initiation into monkhood took place in an extravagant ceremony at Ahmedabad Education Society, in Ahmedabad, Gujarat.

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For the past month, a Southern Illinois family has been struggling with an unusual infestation of turkey vultures. Dozens of vultures are visiting their rural Buncombe home every single day, disturbing the family at odd hours and damaging their 2015 Chevrolet Silverado. The scavenging birds are also staining the entire area with their feces, and have completely ruined a newly built deck on the premises.

Rick Mize, who lives in the house with his wife, step-daughter, and their dog, said he isn’t sure how much it will cost to fix the damages. He revealed that the birds arrived at around the same time that a terrible stench enveloped the area surrounding their house. When asked to describe the smell, Rick said: “Ok, your cat died in your house and you found it five days later after being on vacation. And you walk into your house. That’s the stench, it’s just foul, death.” However, he hasn’t been able to locate any dead animals nearby.

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According to a recent report by state media, 96.7% of all counterfeit bills circulating in China originated from templates hand-drawn by Peng Daxiang, an elderly painter who was arrested in 2013.

Before being apprehended by police, 73-year-old Daxiang, a native of Shantou, Guangdong Province, had single-handedly managed to produce dozens of printing plates worth millions of yuan without the use of computers or other modern technology. Instead, he relied on simple tools like magnifying glasses and film cameras. He apparently made huge profits selling these templates to counterfeiting gangs, charging anywhere between 50,000 yuan ($8,000) and 120,000 yuan ($20,000) per plate.

Officials later discovered that Daxiang, a famous artist in his hometown, was also involved in forging graduate diplomas, official certificates and even food stamps. He was finally sentenced to life imprisonment in 2014, by the Shantou Intermediate People’s Court, on multiple charges including counterfeiting money and forging official documents. All of his possessions were confiscated by the state and he was deprived of political rights for life.

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Using only a simple ballpoint pen, Ghana-based artist Enam Bosokah creates stunningly realistic portraits of prominent African personalities.

“A lot of guys have already made their name using pencil, so I decided to use a pen,” Bosokah said in an interview with Anadolu Agency. “A lot of artists avoid pens because of the irreversibility (i.e., the inability to erase), but I believe it is one of the easier tools to work with. When I use the pen it is like I am adding to the paper – I can’t take it back,” he explained.

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Here comes the bride, all dressed in white and laying in… a coffin? Yes, that’s exactly how 58-year-old Jenny Buckleff arrived at her off-the-wall wedding – in a closed coffin, pulled by a motorcycle!

Jenny, who used to work as an embalmer at a funeral parlor, said that she wanted do “something different” at her wedding. “Instead of turning up in a horse-drawn cart, I thought I’m going to turn up in a coffin,” she said. So she decided to conceal herself in her brother Roger’s black coffin, while her sister-in-law Hayley pulled her all the way to the Llangefni registry office behind a VW Trike.

Interestingly, Jenny revealed that she isn’t actually into any bizarre or goth stuff. “I don’t normally dress like this and I’m not goth at all,” she told the media. “I work for Bet365, so you have to be well presented and I’m normally very smart. But my brother is different. He’s covered in tattoos so for once he looked the part. My brother and I are very close so it was nice to be able to do something to honour him and do something a bit different. He loved it and said it made his day.” Read More »