Peanut, a chicken from a no-kill farm in Michigan, is the current Guinness Record holder for the ‘world’s oldest chicken’, at 21 years, 156 days, and counting.

Chickens have an average life expectancy of five to eight years, so Peanut is somewhat of a Methuselah of the aviary world. On January 28, 2023, she was officially crowned the world’s oldest chicken by Guinness World Records, at the ripe age of 20 years and 272 days. She has since turned 21 and is chasing the title of oldest chicken in recorded history. But the craziest thing about Peanut is that she almost never existed. 21 years ago, her owner was getting ready to throw a batch of rotten-looking eggs a hen had abandoned into an alligator pond when she heard a faint chirp from one of them.

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11,000 runners out of the 30,000 participants at last month’s Mexico City Marathon have been disqualified by organizers for cheating by cutting out sections of the 26.2-mile course.

Marathon cheating is not exactly unheard of. In fact, it occurs at almost every major event, and offenders include some of the world’s most acclaimed athletes, like Australian ultramarathon runner Joasia Zakrzewski, who was accused of using a car during a race, or Kelly Agnew, who allegedly hid in portable toilets to avoid running several race laps. However, this year’s Mexico City Marathon may have set a new record for the highest number of disqualifications due to suspected cheating. A whopping 11,000 runners, more than 1 out of 3 participants, were disqualified for using various means of transportation to cut out sections of the race.

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A 60-year-old Spanish man who claims to be desperately lonely and suffering from serious health problems has been trying to be let into a state prison, because he doesn’t want to commit any crimes.

Justo Márquez, a 60-year-old from Granada, Spain, has been standing outside the Alhaurín de la Torre Prison in Malaga for days, hoping to be allowed inside. He has been photographed holding a sign that reads “I want to go to prison” and he told journalists that he has already met with the prison warden who has so far denied his voluntary incarceration. Márquez, who reportedly suffers from cancer, depression, anxiety, and heart problems, said that he is desperate to “stop being lonely 24 hours a day,” and that prison is his best option to do that.

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After an Indonesian groom disappeared on his wedding day, his father assumed responsibility and married the bride just so the expensive event would not be canceled.

What was supposed to be the happiest day in one Indonesian woman’s life quickly turned into a humiliating nightmare after her husband-to-be disappeared right on their wedding day. The young woman, identified only as SA by Indonesian media outlets, hails from the village of Jikotamo, South Halmahera, and was said to be in a long-term relationship with the groom. However, on August 29, on the day of their wedding, the man ran away, leaving her to explain to the guests that the wedding was off. This was apparently considered inconceivable by both families, as the wedding preparations had cost a small fortune, and the dowry had already been settled, so the groom’s father stepped in and married SA.

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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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A South Korean social media influencer has been conquering the internet with photos so heavily edited that people can’t help but like them.

Female influencers flaunting their God-given or surgically-enhanced physical attributes on social media have been dominating social media for quite a few years now, and while many of them rely on filters and Photoshop skills to digitally alter their appearance, they go out of their way to be as inconspicuous about it as possible. So when one influencer comes along and is not only up-front about digitally manipulating her social media pictures, but actually goes over the top with the editing, people apparently find it surprisingly refreshing. At least that’s one way to explain the rising popularity of Shasheile, a South Korean girl whose ridiculous-looking physique is obviously the result of digital editing.

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Chinese scientists at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan have developed a new, ultra-slippery toilet bowl that almost nothing sticks to.

Porcelain has been the most common toilet bowl manufacturing material for quite a while now, and while it may be a while before a new material upsets it, we already have our eye on an intriguing new material. One of the most important qualities of a good toilet bowl is slipperiness, and while porcelain is ok, it’s definitely not the best. Excrements and other types of waste usually disposed of in the toilet tend to stick to it and require scrubbing and cleaning, which results in wasted water. But what if the waste just slipped down into the bowl with no or very little water? Scientists in China have unveiled an innovative toilet bowl made of an ultra-slippery material that almost nothing sticks to.

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Ever wish your eyes were blue or green? Well, now you don’t have to turn to contact lenses or risky artificial iris implants to make your dream come true. You can simply have your own eyes permanently tattooed.

Originally developed as a way of dealing with patients suffering from disfiguring corneal opacities, keratopigmentation, aka ‘corneal tattooing’, has seen a boost in popularity among people seeking a mere aesthetic change. Safely changing eye color has long been an impossible dream, but today there are actually several types of procedures that allow you to do just this. Ten years ago, we wrote about the controversial artificial iris implant that came with provided excellent results but came with its share of health risks. Then, in 2017, there was the revolutionary laser surgery that could change eye color from brown to blue in just 20 seconds. Nowadays, however, it’s all about kaeratopigmentation, a seemingly safe procedure that uses advanced machinery and biologically compatible pigments to permanently change eye color.

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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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Wisconsin’s Lake Chippewa is home to a giant floating island that sometimes moves around blocking a critically important bridge and needs to be moved by local boat owners working in unison.

Lake Chippewa, aka the Chippewa Flowage, was created in 1923, by flooding a large swamp. Soon after that, many of the peat bogs started rising to the surface and became perfect growing spots for plant seeds carried by wind and wild birds. As the years passed, plants from grasses to trees began to grow and their roots actually caused these floating bogs to grow. Today, they vary from the size of a parking space to several acres, with the largest of them, the so-called “Forty Acre Bog” on the west side of the lake featuring mature trees. Almost every year, dozens of local boat owners team up to push it away from a bridge connecting the East and West sides of the lake.

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Government employees working in a decrepit building in Telangana, India, have taken to wearing motorcycle helmets to prevent slabs of concrete from the ceiling falling on their heads.

A video of several male employees at the ‘Development Office’ of Jagtial district, in Telangana, wearing motorcycle helmets while working has gone viral on Indian social media. Ironically, the Development Office is tasked with developing the district by giving the internet to villagers and creating infrastructure, but the workplace is in such a terrible state that workers have to protect themselves against falling debris. Local media reported that the staff have been demanding relocation to a safer office building after a colleague nearly suffered brain damage when a cement slab of cement fell from the ceiling.

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Japan’s Mitsubishi Uni-ball ONE series black gel pen has been recognized as the world’s blackest gel pen by Guinness World Records.

When it comes to the world’s blackest paint, there is no competing with Vanta Black, but pen gel is a whole other matter. Mitsubishi Pencil Co.Ltd. now holds the record for the blackest gel pen, thanks to an innovative type of pigment-containing particles that seal the paint inside. When writing on paper, it can reduce the penetration of the gel into paper fibers, making the color look more saturated than other gel pens.

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A 71-year-old man from Brazil’s Tocantins region was pronounced dead in 1995, based on the testimony of his ex-wife and two witnesses. He spent the next 28 years of his life legally dead…

On August 16, Manoel Marciano da Silva finally had his death certificate annulled after a two-year-long court battle. To the Brazilian authorities, he had been dead and buried in the public cemetery of Augustinópolis, in Tocantins, for 28 years, but this only became a problem for the man himself about two years ago, when he couldn’t collect his pension and couldn’t get access to free healthcare, based on his insurance. That’s when he started investigating his ‘death’ and learned that it had been his ex-wife and two witnesses who had declared him dead to authorities.

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London-based GABA Labs is working on a type of synthetic alcohol called ‘Alcarelle’ which reportedly provides the relaxing effects of alcohol without hangovers, balance deficiencies or any of its other negative side effects.

Gamma-aminobutyric acid, aka GABA, is a neurotransmitter that blocks certain signals in the brain, thus producing a calming effect. When alcohol reaches the brain, it binds to GABA receptors and produces the same effects, relaxing and calming people down. The problem with alcohol is that it also has other negative side effects, like hangover, movement difficulties, speaking and thinking problems, etc.  GABA Labs is currently working on a type of synthetic alcohol called Alcarelle that is supposed to provide all the positive effects of alcohol consumption, but none of the bad ones.

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A Spanish restaurant recently paid 30,000 euros ($32,800) for a 2.2kg (4.85 lbs) piece of handmade cheese, thus setting a new world record for the most expensive piece of cheese.

Every year, in the last week of August, the town of Las Arenas de Cabrales hosts a contest where the best pieces of Cabrales cheese are auctioned off to the highest bidder. This year, Llagar de Colloto, a restaurant in Oviedo, Spain, paid a whopping 30,000 euros for a piece of Cabrales cheese made by hand from cow and goat milk and matured for several months in a cave in Los Picos de Europa mountains. Made by the Los Puertos cheese factory from Poo de Cabrales, the 2.2kg piece of cheese was selected by the jury as the best of the cheeses of fifteen producers who participated in the contest and was the most coveted in the subsequent auction.

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