A number of Taiwan sushi fans who legally changed their name to include the characters for the word ‘salmon’, as part of a restaurant promotional stunt, have now become stuck with it.

Taiwanese legislators are currently debating the possibility to change a law that only allows citizens to legally change their names a maximum of three times as a way to mitigate the aftermath of an event known as “Salmon Chaos”. In March of 2021, international news outlets covered the bizarre promotion of Taiwanese restaurant chain Sushiro, which offered sushi at discounted prices or totally free to people who legally changed their names to include the characters for ‘salmon’. Over 300 people reportedly took Sushiro up on their offer, and while most managed to switch back their old names days after taking advantage of the promotion, some have been stuck with hilarious names like ‘Handsom Salmon’, ‘Dancing Salmon’ or ‘Salmon Dream’.

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A former secretary turned confectioner has been making a name for herself on social media by creating ultra-realistic cakes shaped as everyday objects.

29-year-old Marian Sarkisian used to work as a secretary in Los Angeles, but after a week-long course in Britain, she fell in love with the art of cake-making and decided to turn her passion into a career. It all started in 2016, after a birthday cake made for her sister got a lot of attention from friends and family. Marian started a cake business and as her creations became more and more elaborate, she started getting flooded with requests for special events like weddings, birthdays and christenings. But just as things were starting to pick up, the pandemic hit and the young confectioner found herself with a lot of free time on her hands. That’s when she started experimenting with edible illusions.

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Medico Life Partner, an Indian dating site that only accepts doctors, recently sparked controversy online, with many claiming that it promotes classism.

Ever wish you could find a significant life partner that shared your profession? Well, if you happen to be a doctor, you’re in luck! Medico Life Partner is an online matchmaking service that aims to help male and female doctors find “hi-quality partners” who share their profession. The website claims that doctors of all religions, castes, and geography can register, but it seems to be particularly popular in India, where the vast majority of users come from.

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A trio of origami and paper plane building enthusiasts recently obliterated the world record for the farthest paper plane flight by achieving a jaw-dropping distance of 77.134 m (252 ft 7 in).

On April 16, 2022, at an indoor sports venue in Daegu, South Korea, Kim Kyu Tae managed to shatter the world record for the longest paper plane flight with each one of his eight throws. The previous record of 69.14 m (226 ft 10 in) set by Joe Ayoob and John M. Collins had been standing for a decade, but Kim managed to break it on all of his eight measured attempts (71.813 m being the shortest and 77.134 m being the farthest). But Kim was just one part of a trio who worked hard on designing and building this simple-looking but remarkable paper plane.

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To celebrate World Bee Day properly, Italian beekeeper Rocco Filomeno recently listed the world’s first bee farm on Airbnb, allowing guests to sleep to the sound of over 1 million buzzing insects.

Located on Rocco’s olive farm just outside the picturesque village of Grottole in southern Italy, the unique accommodation was designed by artist Davide Tagliabue, financed through crowdfunding and built with the help of local volunteers. The modest structure was made entirely of fir and birchwood and cost only $17,000 to make. It might not look like much at first glance, but what really makes it unique is that it is built around a giant hive of over 1 million bees. The main idea was for visitors to fall asleep to the buzzing of bees, a humming sound known to have a soothing effect.

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Authorities in the African country of Sudan have allegedly sentenced a ram to three years in prison for hitting and killing an old woman.

If humans had to go to prison every time they killed a goat, we would have to build so many more prisons, but when the roles are reversed for a change the poor animal has to answer for its actions. That’s exactly what allegedly happened in Sudan earlier this month – at least according to multiple national news outlets – after a ram in Rumbek East County charged at an elderly woman hitting her in the ribs and causing serious injuries that later proved fatal. It’s unclear what possessed the animal to attack, but once it was identified as the culprit, the ram was taken into custody and sentenced to hard time.

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A single dad in the Philippines recently made international news headlines after it was revealed that he named his only son after popular anime protagonist Naruto and his parents.

Jamesey Bolivar Maribojo, a 29-year-old anime buff from Davao City in the Philippines, is a big fan of Naruto, the mischievous teen ninja whose adventures have fascinated several generations of anime enthusiasts. He loves Naruto so much that when his girlfriend became pregnant he worked hard to convince her to name their son after the popular character. She agreed, but Jamesey did not stop there. Once he got his foot through the proverbial door, he pushed hard to have the surnames of Naruto’s parents written on the boy’s birth certificate. His son’s full name is Naruto Uzumaki Namikaze Maribojo.

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Cha Deen, a small tea stall in Lam Phlai, Thailand’s Songkhla Province, recently made national news for its unconventional choice of tea packaging.

In Thailand and other Asian countries, chai is usually sold in clear plastic bags. It looks a bit weird to most of us foreigners, but it’s apparently pretty standard there. Be that as it may, even most Thais raised an eyebrow (or both) when they saw the unconventional shape of the bags used by a chai stall in Lam Phlai. Instead of standard plastic bags and straws, Cha Deen uses a custom bag design featuring an appendage that kind of looks like a, well, see for yourself…

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An Indian man was recently ousted as the cause of frequent power outages in his native village, as he always cut the power in the entire settlement whenever he wanted to see his girlfriend.

For weeks, the people of Ganeshpur, a small village in eastern Bihar’s Purnia district, had to put up with frequent power outages that only seemed to occur a few hours after sunset. No one seemed to know what was causing the problems, as the power company had not reported any power grid malfunctions, and none of the neighboring villages were dealing with similar issues. Exasperated, many in the villages started paying attention to the time when the outages occurred and came to the conclusion that power always went down after dark. They started to suspect foul play and came up with a plan to investigate…

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Japan is home to a variety of weird shops, from ones offering magic love-granting apples to others selling hoof sandals, but when it comes to services, this hard-disk crushing shop definitely stands out.

Dark Past Final Disposal Site is a unique shop where anyone can safely destroy their potentially sensitive digital data by crushing their old drive in a special machine, for just 100 yen ($0.80). The Akihabara-based shop introduced the service in 2020, when a growing number of personal computer owners began raising questions about what happened to their personal data when they changed their PCs. The owners of Dark Past Final Disposal Site bought a professional hard drive destroying machine and began offering people the chance to safely dispose of their potentially compromising data.

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A dog owner in Eastern China’s Jiangsu province spent the last three years and a whopping 340,000 yuan ($51,156) building a miniature mansion for his 10 pooches.

Mr. Zhou, a 33-year-old businessman who made his money in the crayfish trade, started his pet project in 2019, soon after finishing another, much more modest abode for his dogs. Proud of his achievement at the time, he decided to share a video tour of it on Chinese streaming platform Douyin, hoping to get some positive feedback. However, most of the comments from viewers turned out to be negative, which only motivated the young businessman to start over and this time give the internet and his pets something special. After three years of hard work and hundreds of changes, Zhou finally completed his masterpiece, and this time people were indeed impressed.

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A Japanese man who had always wanted to live as an animal managed to fulfill his dream thanks to a professional dog costume made by a company specializing in special effects and special modeling.

Ever wanted to live as an animal? No? Well, Japanese Twitter user ‘Toco’ had been thinking about it for a while, and he recently decided to follow his dream. He contacted special effects workshop Zeppet and asked them to build him an ultra-realistic dog costume that would conceal his human frame and allow him to live out his fantasy. They reportedly charged him about 2 million yen ($15,000) for it, but the end result was indeed pretty darn impressive.

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The Indian Runner duck has the most distinctive body type among all the world’s duck breeds. With legs positioned further back on the body than all other duck breeds, they stand upright like penguins and run rather than waddle.

Native to the Asian continent, the Indian Runner duck is a development of the wild mallard. However, its unique evolution is believed to have been determined more by human interference than natural evolution. First encountered by European sailors during the 1800s in Indonesia, where it wasn’t uncommon for farmers to have heards of over 1,000 ducks. It stood out because of its unusual body posture and running ability, which were unusual for European duck breeds. Today, the Indian Runner is found on all the world’s continents, although it is still considered somewhat of an oddity outside of Asia.

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Bera, a small town in the Indian state of Rajasthan is famous for being the only place on Earth where humans and leopards live in perfect harmony.

India is one of the most densely-populated countries on Earth, and as humanity continues to encroach on the still-uninhabited woodlands and mountains, conflicts between leopards and humans are inevitable. In fact, with human expansion at peak levels and the number of leopards higher than they’ve been in decades, tensions between the two species are growing. But there’s one place where humans and leopards have allegedly been living in peace and harmony for at least a century. Known as “leopard country”, the town of Bera is said to contain the highest concentration of leopards on the planet.

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A Japanese woman has been compared to The Incredibles’ Elastigirl because of her ability to stretch her earlobes enough to wrap them around things like umbrellas or selfie sticks.

Ayumi Takada, a 37-year-old woman from Tokyo, first noticed that her earlobes were super-elastic when she was in elementary school. It was a rainy day, and her hands were full, so she tried holding the umbrella with her ear as a third hand and it worked. That was only the beginning, as the Japanese woman has since used her unusually stretchy ear lobes to hold selfie sticks, calligraphy brushes, cleaning appliances and others.

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