Animal lovers and animal rights activists the world over are asking for a boycott of the Bully Cat, a hairless breed becoming increasingly popular among people fascinated by extreme body shapes.

The bully cat is a relatively new feline breed that takes the characteristics of the hairless sphynx to a whole new level while adding other problematic features. This particular hairless breed has stubby short legs and heavily wrinkled skin that animal experts claim is prone to horrifying health problems. Believed to have originated in the United States only a few years ago, the bully cat quickly became popular overseas as well, particularly in the UK where animal welfare organizations recently began sounding the alarm about what they are calling a designer fad with painful consequences for the animals being exploited by unscrupulous breeders.

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A regional beauty pageant in Altamira, Brazil ended in tragedy after the father of one of the contestants started shooting at the judges because his daughter had only gotten fourth place.

The bizarre incident took place on July 28, after the end of the “II Baile da Escolha da Rainha” beauty pageant in the city of Altamira. About a couple of hours after the contest ended, the father of one of the participants, a local rancher identified as Sebastiao Francisco, began voicing his dissatisfaction regarding his daughter’s fourth-place finish in the competition, questioning the judges’ decision and the evaluation criteria. The venue where the beauty pageant had taken place was staffed by private security and military police, but the angry father didn’t seem to care, and at one point took out a gun and attempted to shoot at one of the judges, only to be shot at by police.

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Zhang Sixuan, a 9-year-old girl from China’s Henan province, bested some of the world’s most elite kung fu masters to earn the title of “Shaolin Kung Fu Star” at this year’s World Shaolin Games.

There are millions of Shaolin Kung fu practitioners around the world, and every year tens of thousands of them compete for a chance to be invited to participate in the World Shaolin Games Finals. This year, an international cast of 124 kung fu practitioners was invited to show off their skills at a Shaolin temple in central China’s Henan Province, in front of respected kung fu masters and an audience of kung fu enthusiasts. Among them was a 9-year-old girl whose incredible flexibility and mastery of tong zi gong (a form of Shaolin kung fu) stunned both the judges and the crowd, earning her the coveted title of Shaolin Kung Fu Star.

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Jorit Agoch is a famous Italian graffiti artist known for his clean style and large-scale, ultra-realistic portrait murals painted on the side of buildings all over the world.

Over the last 16 years, we’ve featured many impressive graffiti artworks, like the mind-boggling optical illusions of Portuguese street artist Odeith, the ingenious portraits of Fabio Gomes Trindade, and the three-dimensional masterpieces of Carlos Alberto GH, just to name a few. However, in terms of realism, few can compare it to the work of Italian street artist Jorit Agoch. Hailing from Quarto, a commune in the Naples metropolitan area, Jorit quickly made a name for himself in the urban art world thanks to his impressively clean style and a degree of realism that is very hard to achieve using spray paint. Today, his awe-inspiring portrait murals can be admired in dozens of cities around the world, from Italy to Russia, the USA, and South America.

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A bike-riding poodle has been getting a lot of attention on social media for his ability to get on a bicycle and ride it, using his front legs to steer and his hind legs to pedal.

Xu Laifu is not your average dog. The adorable poodle who hails from somewhere in China’s Jiangsu Province can ride a bicycle about as well as a three or four-year-old child. The canine became somewhat of an overnight sensation after videos of him riding a bicycle around a basketball court went viral, first in China and then in other Asian countries. He was recently featured by Japan’s Fuji News Network where photos and videos of his bicycle riding left people speechless. According to the Japanese outlet, Laifu’s owner spent about a year training the poodle to ride a bicycle, and he apparently loved every minute of it.

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35-year-old Brandon Miles May has been making a name for himself in the online anti-aging community because of his unusually youthful looks which he attributes to a healthy, balanced lifestyle.

Looking at Brandon Miles May for the first time, you’d probably mistake him for a teenager, but he is 35 years old. We’ve seen such shocking discrepancies between age and appearance before, but it was usually due to some rare hormonal disorder. In Brandon’s case, he never mentioned such a condition in any of his TikTok videos, instead attributing his incredibly youthful looks to his anti-aging regimen, which includes a balanced diet, minimal sun exposure, and at least eight hours of sleep per night.

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A 90-year-old Chinese woman unknowingly used an old hand grenade to crack nuts and hammer nails for two decades after finding the unexploded ordinance in a field one day.

The woman, surnamed Qin, told Chinese reporters that she was working on her farm in Xiangyang, Hubei province when she found this strange “metal lump” with a wooden handle. Convinced it was a makeshift hammer, she took it home and used it to pound all kinds of tough objects, from nuts to metal nails. It was only last week when a team of men working on demolishing her old house noticed the hand grenade that the retired woman learned she had been gambling with her life every time she used it. And she used it a lot, as police reported that the grenade’s wooden handle had become smooth and glossy from years of use, while the metallic head was full of dents.

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The airplane flight between the Scottish islands of Westray and Papa Westray holds the world record for the shortest commercial flight, as the plane is usually in the air for just under 2 minutes.

Most of us can just hop into a car, bus, or train for short trips, but things are different in the islands of northern Scotland. The few people who call the Orkney Islands their home have only two options, a ferry ride over rough waters, or an incredibly short flight in a small plane. The second option is the most popular – because the ferry can often face disruption due to rough waters – and the most famous because of how short the flights can be. In fact, the flight between the islands of Westray and Papa Westray is officially recognized as the world’s shortest commercial flight. It usually lasts about 90 seconds, but with favorable winds, it can be over in less than a minute.

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A Japanese company has developed an artificial intelligence filter that can detect angry screams and translate them into calm speech in order to reduce the stress experienced by call center operators.

Large tech companies have long been aware of the stress their call center operators are exposed to every single day, with many customers taking out their anger and frustrations on them. Some of them have even introduced stress management programs that include relaxation techniques, meditation, yoga, or therapy meant to irritability and anxiety. However, one Japanese company may have come up with a much more efficient solution – using AI to completely take screaming and aggressive speech out of the equation. SofBank claims to have spent three years creating a voice filter that detects screaming and automatically translates it into calm speech.

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Researchers at the University of California recently created a self-powered throat patch that uses machine learning to translate muscle movements into speech, helping people to speak without vocal cords.

Jun Chen, an assistant professor of bioengineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, came up with the idea for a non-invasive speech-enabling device after feeling his vocal cords get tired as a result of lecturing for several hours at a time. He began thinking of ways of helping a person speak without using their vocal cords, and with the help of his colleagues at the University of California, he designed an innovative patch that sticks to the user’s throat and uses AI technology to decode their muscle movements into speech. The lightweight device is resistant to skin sweat and also harnesses the user’s muscle movements to generate electricity, which means that it doesn’t require a battery to operate.

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The Island of Sark, the smallest of the Channel Islands located between France and England, is home to the world’s smallest prison still in use today – a tiny building with only two cells.

There are no cars, no roads and no streetlights on Sark Island, but there is a small prison dating back to the year 1856. Featuring just two tiny cells – one measuring 6 feet by 6 feet and the other 6 feet by 8 feet – separated by a narrow corridor, it holds the Guinness World Record for the ‘world’s smallest prison’. It’s only fitting that an island measuring just under 5 kilometers long and 1.6 kilometers wide, with a population of under 600 people, be home to the world’s smallest prison. The two cells only have small, wood-slatted beds with thin mattresses for inmates to sleep on, and inmates can only be held here for a maximum of two days, after which they have to be transferred to the larger prison facilities on the neighboring Guernsey Island.

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The backbend is considered a crucial move in Chinese folk dancing, but it is also the main cause of severe spine cord injuries in children as young as five, leaving thousands of them paralyzed for life.

Ironically, the vast majority of parents pushing their beloved children towards folk dancing have their offspring’s best interest in mind, hoping to improve their physical fitness and overall health, but studies have found that one particular move taught in folk dancing schools is putting children’s lives at risk. Data analyzed by the Chinese Orthopaedic Association showed that the percentage of spinal cord injuries caused by the backbend exploded from just 4% between 1992 and 2002 to a whopping 33.9% of all pediatric spinal injuries between 2015 and 2019. Other reports show that, since 2005, over 1,000 children have been left paralyzed after doing backbends in dance classes, making this move the single greatest paralysis threat for young Chinese children.

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An 18-year-old Chinese girl who became so obsessed with her boyfriend that she tracked his every move and called him 100 times per day was eventually diagnosed with a condition called “love brain”.

Chinese outlet Yueniu News recently reported the case of Xiaoyu, an 18-year-old girl from Sichuan province who became so obsessed with her boyfriend that she made both their lives a living nightmare. The girl’s unsettling behavior began in her first year of university when she became romantically involved with a boy whose name has not been revealed to protect his privacy. According to Du Na, a doctor at The Fourth People’s Hospital of Chengdu, Xiaoyu quickly became unnaturally obsessed with her boyfriend, wanting to know his whereabouts at all times and freaking out when he didn’t immediately reply to her texts. Sounds like your average control freak behavior, but according to the doctor, Xiaoyu suffered from a rare mental disorder called “love brain”.

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Alejandra Marisa Rodríguez, a 60-year-old lawyer and journalist from Buenos Aires, recently won the title of Miss Buenos Aires and qualified for the Miss Argentina beauty pageant.

At the end of last year, the Miss Universe beauty contest became more inclusive by eliminating an age limit that had been enforced since 1958. Starting this year, the competition is no longer limited to women between the ages of 18 and 28. Instead, the rules only mention that contestants must be of legal age to participate, which opened the door for many more mature hopefuls, including a stunningly youthful-looking 60-year-old woman from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Alejandra Marisa Rodríguez recently went viral on Latino social media after winning the Miss Buenos Aires title despite competing against dozens of much younger women.

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A wealthy couple from Gujarat, India, have decided to donate their entire Rs 200 crore fortune to charity and become Jain monks, relying solely on the generosity of others for survival.

Bhavesh Bhandari and his wife have built their wealth in the lucrative construction business, amassing an enviable fortune of over Rs 200 crore ($24 million). Like most other millionaires, they have enjoyed a life of luxury complete with opulent houses, expensive cars, and pretty much anything else their hearts desired. But the two recently decided to give it all up in order to become Jain ascetic monks, inspired by their two children – a 16-year-old son and a 19-year-old daughter – who adopted the same path in 2022. On April 22, the Gujarat power couple will renounce all worldly possessions, sever ties with their families, and embark on a barefoot journey across India, surviving only on alms.

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