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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Ohio-based flamethrower manufacturer Throwflame recently unveiled the Thermonator, a remote-controlled robot dog with a functional flamethrower mounted on its back.

Robot dogs have been getting more and more popular in recent years, with news reports from China suggesting that they are replacing real dogs because they require less attention and maintenance. However, one American company is using the robotic quadruped as a platform for its flamethrowers. The Thermonator is an advanced flamethrowing dog equipped with Throwflame’s ARC flamethrower which has a firing range of 30 feet and can be used for a variety of tasks, including wildfire management, agricultural burns, snow and ice removal, and special effects. And you can buy yours for just $9,420.

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Scammers are always finding new ways of taking advantage of gullible people, and apparently selling seeds of fake flowers generated by artificial intelligence is one of their latest techniques.

Artificial intelligence is touted as the next big thing in technological evolution, but right now it also seems to be a perfect tool for scammers looking to take advantage of people who can’t tell the difference between what’s real and what’s not. Forget the elaborate scams where AI is used to fake actual people’s faces and voices, or the perfect-looking digital avatars posing as virtual girlfriends for hire, these days people are using artificial intelligence to create fake flowers that look like cute cat faces and selling seeds to clueless plant lovers online. Seeds of non-existent plants with named like “Cats Eye Dazzle” are currently being sold on various legitimate-looking websites, as well as popular e-commerce platforms like eBay or Etsy.

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A 40-year-old Turkish man can consider himself lucky to be alive after having a dental implant screw pushed all the way into his brain cavity by an overzealous dentist.

Ramazan Yilmaz went to a private dental clinic in his home city of Bursa, Turkey, after experiencing serious dental pain. After examining him, the dentist there informed the man that he had loose teeth and a delicate bone structure and that the best solution was to take out his natural teeth and replace them with implants. Trusting the opinion of the expert, Yilmaz agreed to the cost of the dental procedure and to have some of his teeth removed on that very same day. But things started going south from there. First, he heard the doctor, referred to only as A.D. by Turkish media, telling his assistant that the tool used to insert the implant screws into the bone wasn’t working properly, and then he had to endure the pain of having the screws inserted manually by the physician.

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A video doing the rounds on Chinese social media these days has gone viral for showing how easy it is to use AI-powered deepfake technology to transform into virtually anyone online.

App filters and deepfake technology have been around for years now, but the advent of artificial intelligence has elevated them to a whole new level, one which makes it almost impossible to tell what is real on the internet. Take this recent video shared by a Chinese engineer where he demonstrates how easy it is for him to pass as an attractive young girl. All he has to do is put on a wig, enable a piece of software and the AI takes care of the rest. It is able to replace the man’s face with that of an attractive girl but otherwise mimics all of his actions, including eating with chopsticks, pinching his own face, and speaking with the appropriate mouth movement.

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Wang Deshun is an 88-year-old actol and fashion model who rose to fame in 2015 when he walked the runway topless at the China Fashion Week in Beijing during his first modeling gig ever.

In 2017, when we first featured Wang Deshun on Oddity Central, he was just two years into his modeling career, even though he was already 81 years old. His iconic walkout at the China Fashion Week was still in everyone’s minds, and he was getting all sorts of deals from some of the largest fashion houses in the world. People loved his story, and for good reason. Born in 1936 into a modest family, he was the second-oldest of ten children. His parents encouraged him to follow his dreams and he did just that, becoming an actor, then pivoting to pantomime and performance art before trying his luck at fashion modeling with incredible success. But that wasn’t enough for China’s hottest gandpa, as Wang has come to be known. He has since obtained a plane pilot license and learned how to ride a motorcycle and a horse.

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An Argentinian man became an overnight sensation in South America after reportedly barricading himself inside a car dealership and refusing to leave without the truck he had made an advance payment for.

Abelardo Usandivaras, aka the “gaucho of Salta’, has been making international news headlines for over two weeks and has become somewhat of a living symbol of the common man’s struggle against the shady practices of car dealerships. The middle-aged man from Metán, in Salta, arrived in Buenos Aires with his family at the beginning of April, and went straight to the dealership that was supposed to deliver his new much-needed truck. After failing to get the answers he needed and finding himself unable to get in touch with the owner, Usandivaras barricaded himself inside the dealership, refusing to leave without the truck he was promised, or at least the downpayment he had made for it. His story quickly went viral, and Abelardo’s struggle became a hot topic in all of Latin America.

Usandivaras, a horse breeder and advisor from Metán, decided to buy a new truck last year, and after getting in touch with a dealership in Buenos Aires, he decided to sell his old truck and make a downpayment for a new one. Everything went smoothly up to that point, but after paying the advance, he never heard back from the dealership. They had a 120-day delivery deadline, but he never got so much as an update, and whenever he got in touch, they just referred him to another department.

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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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A 42-year-old Brazilian woman was recently arrested for allegedly bringing a dead man to a bank and trying to obtain a bank loan in his name.

On April 16, Erika de Souza Vieira Nunes arrived at an Itau Unibanco branch in Bangu, Rio de Janeiro to assist 68-year-old Paulo Roberto Braga in obtaining a bank loan of R$17,000 ($3,200). The elderly man was in a wheelchair and she claimed to be his niece and primary caretaker. Bank employees soon noticed that there was something seriously wrong with Braga, as his alleged niece had to support his head with her hand. He literally showed no signs of life, but Vieira Nunes allegedly kept telling the staff that he was just quiet by nature. She even tried speaking to him although it was obvious he wasn’t capable of answering.

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Chinese runner He Jie’s victory at last week’s Beijing Half-Marathon has been overshadowed by a scandal involving three Kenyan runners who appear to let the Chinese competitor win the race.

Sunday’s Beijing Half-Marathon saw 25-year-old He Jie crossed the finish line first, in 1:03:44, under a second ahead of an African trio of runners who collectively claimed second place. It was an impressive achievement for the Chinese runner, especially since one of the runners-up was former 5km world record-holder Robert Keter of Kenya, but his win was quickly called into question on social media after suspicious videos recorded during the race made their way online. The fact that He seemed to be the only one sprinting as he approached the finish line was bizarre enough, but one clip shows Kenya’s Willy Mnangat signaling his countryman Keter and Ethiopian runner Dejene Hailu Bikila to hang back and waving He Jie to overtake them.

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The simple mistake of a law firm clerk accidentally choosing the wrong file from a dropdown menu on an online portal led to the irrevocable divorce of the wrong couple.

A senior judge recently refused to overturn the divorce of a couple who had accidentally been chosen from a dropdown menu by solicitors at leading London law firm Vardags, headed by Ayesha Vardag. The couple, referred to as Mr and Mrs Williams by the court, had been married for 21 years until 2023 when they separated. The couple was still in the process of arranging financial agreements for their separation when a Vardags clerk accidentally selected them for a final divorce order on an online portal, which saw them legally divorced in just 21 minutes. All attempts to have the error overturned by the judge were denied because the public trust in a truly final divorce order was more important.

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A California teen became the subject of a recent medical paper after getting a metal coin vertically stuck between his vocal cords like in a slot machine.

In a medical report published in this month’s New England Journal of Medicine, a team of doctors detailed the bizarre case of a 14-year-old boy who showed up at the emergency room of a hospital with a hoarse throat and swallowing difficulties. He told the staff that he had accidentally swallowed a quarter, but reported no difficulties breathing and no drooling. However, after performing an X-ray scan of his chest and neck, doctors immediately recognized the severity of the situation, as the metal coin had become stuck in a vertical position between his vocal cords and could damage them if left there for too long.

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A 40-year-old Italian man took a doctor and two medical clinics to court after paying for a penis enlargement procedure that he claims left him with “impotence and erectile dysfunction”.

The unnamed man from Tuscany, Italy, allegedly paid a cosmetic surgeon 5,000 euros ($5,400) for a penis enlargement procedure, but after about a month he ended up calling the doctor to complain about physical discomfort. This was only the beginning of a painful odyssey that saw the patient undergo a total of 12 procedures in an attempt to fix the initial botched surgery. According to court documents obtained by Italian news media, the man had two lipofilling operations, in which fat from various parts of his body was transferred to his penis in order to adjust its shape. Unfortunately, they did not have the desired effect, as the man’s genitals did not maintain the expected shape and volume.

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Experts are issuing warnings about the dangers of excessive vitamin D consumption after a UK man died of hypercalcemia, a rare condition caused by high levels of vitamin D.

David Mitchener, an 89-year-old retired businessman from the UK, died last year from hypercalcemia, a buildup of calcium in the body as a result of excessive levels of vitamin D. Michener was admitted to East Surrey Hospital on May 10, 2023, and was pronounced dead ten days later. According to a report from Jonathan Stevens, the assistant coroner at the hospital, the 89-year-old man’s vitamin D levels were at the maximum recordable level. Vitamin D toxicity was listed as one of the main factors in Michener’s death, along with Congestive heart disease, chronic kidney failure, and hypercalcemia.

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Australian supermarket chain Drakes recently started a trial of putting GPS locators on expensive meats in order to reduce losses caused by shoplifting.

A South Australian supermarket chain has become so exasperated with meat shoplifting that it is currently trialing a security system that involves putting cuts of expensive meat into transparent cases fitted with GPS locators that allow the product to be tracked. The polpolycarbonate cases are usually used to prevent theft of high-priced items in supermarkets, but Drakes is the first in Australia to use them on meat. Technically, high-quality meat like Wagyu qualifies as a luxury product, so Drakes believes the security measure is justified.

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