Scientists are trying to understand how a herd of goats not only survived but thrived on an isolated island in northeastern Brazil for over two centuries without any known fresh water source.

It’s not clear how exactly the goats originally wound up on Santa Bárbara, one of the five volcanic islands that make up the Abrolhos archipelago, about 70 kilometers off the coast of Bahia, but scientists believe they were brought and left there by colonizers. Livestock like goats, pigs, and poultry made for a reliable food source, but they were usually left behind when colonization failed. Their presence on Santa Bárbara Island has been documented for more than 250 years, according to historical records, which is remarkable if we take into account that the small island has no known fresh water sources. Despite this “inconvenience,” the goats thrived on the dry, windy island to the point where they had to be relocated in order to protect endemic plants and animals.

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A textile worker in Brazil’s Goias state stands accused of poisoning a co-worker’s water bottle after quarreling with them over what the woman considered an unfair promotion.

The incident occurred last month at a textile factory in Abadia de Goias, a town in the Goiânia Metropolitan Region. Police claim that the 38-year-old suspect was caught by CCTV cameras tampering with another worker’s drink container before the latter drank from it and felt a burning sensation in her throat. Subsequent analysis of the container found a high concentration of a potent solvent in the water, which strongly suggests that the perpetrator wanted to poison their co-worker. Witnesses testified that the two women used to be friends, but their relationship went sour after the victim received a promotion that didn’t sit too well with the prime suspect in the poisoning case. They fought all the time and they had allegedly had an argument prior to the solvent poisoning.

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Buriticupu, a town of roughly 55,000 people located in the Brazilian Amazon, risks being swallowed by giant ravines that have been growing “exponentially” over the last few months.

Authorities in Buriticupu have already evacuated 1,200 people from the highest-risk areas of the town, but with no solution in sight, the giant ravines threaten to eventually swallow the entire settlement. Buriticupu’s sinkhole problem dates back roughly three decades and is reportedly the cause of a combination of factors, such as erosion-prone sandy soil, poor urban planning, and deforestation, but it has been exacerbated by recent heavy rains which caused the sinkholes to expand at a rapid pace. A couple of years ago, experts identified 26 giant holes advancing toward the town, some of which have since merged to create ravines up to 20 meters deep.

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A Brazilian woman who dedicated her life to catching her father; ‘s killer managed to finally bring her family peace by catching the runaway criminal to justice 25 years after the murder.

On February 16, 1999, Givaldo José Vicente de Deus was shot and killed after a heated argument at a bar in the Brazilian city of Boa Vista. He had gotten into an argument with one Raimundo Alves Gomes over a debt of 150 Brazilian reals (the equivalent of $29 in 1999) that Givaldo reportedly owed Gomes. At one point, the latter walked out of the bar for a few minutes, then came back in with a gun and shot the father-of-five in the head at point-blank range. Gomes fled the scene and although an arrest warrant was issued in his name, he was never caught. Givaldo’s grieving family never gave up hope of bringing his killer to justice, and his eldest daughter, who was only nine at the time of his death, dedicated her life to catching Gomes.

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Helio da Silva, a retired business executive from Brazil, single-handedly planted over 41,000 trees in his hometown of Sao Paolo over the last two decades.

Flying over the Brazilian metropolis of Sao Paolo, it’s tough to miss the 3.2-kilometers-long and 100-meter-wide green strip of trees wedged between two of the city’s busiest roads. It is known as Tiquatira Linear Park, and it is the work of a single man who worked tirelessly for over 20 years in order to transform a previously dilapidated area into an actual jungle within the urban jungle that is Sao Paolo. Originally from the town of Promissao, about 500km from Sao Paulo, Helio da Silva was a successful business executive for many years, but after retiring, he took it upon himself to transform the degraded banks of the Tiquatira River into a green oasis for his community. He started planting trees there in 20023 and hasn’t stopped since.

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Two dangerous male criminals imprisoned at a correctional facility in Fortaleza, Brazil attempted a daring escape by disguising themselves as women and simply walking out during visiting hours.

Francisco Átila da Silva and Carlos Antônio da Silva Oliveira, suspected members of a criminal faction in Ceará with long criminal records including drug trafficking, robbery, and murder, were caught trying to escape the Itaitinga 3 prison in Fortaleza, Brazil while wearing rudimentary female disguises. The two men wore long black-hair wigs, pink skirts, and white t-shirts, and even had improvised breasts to fool the guards. They tried mingling with real women at the end of conjugal visiting hours to reduce the risk of getting noticed by the guards, but their sloppy getups were quickly spotted, and the two were detained before they set foot outside the prison.

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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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The Pirangi Cashew Tree in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Norte is considered the world’s largest cashew tree. It has a circumference of around 500 meters and covers an area of 8,400 square meters.

Legend has it that the Pirangi Cashew Tree was planted in 1888 by a local fisherman who later died at the age of 93 under the shade of the humongous tree. However, experts believe that, based on its growth characteristics, “the tree is estimated to be more than a thousand years old”. One thing is for sure, though, this is no ordinary cashew tree. It is the size of 70 normally sized cashew trees and actually has to be seen from a special lookout point high above to be truly appreciated. It produces over 60,000 cashew fruits per year and also attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over Brazil.

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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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A 70-year-old retiree from Bahia, Brazil, claims that he has drunk a drop of water in the last 50 years, relying solely on Coca-Cola for hydration, despite suffering from diabetes and heart problems.

Roberto Pedreira, probably the world’s no. 1 Coca-Cola fan, recently went viral online for his love of the popular fizzy drink. While hospitalized with Covid-19, the Brazilian pensioner wrote in his care chart that he did not drink liquid medicine or water, only Coca-Cola Zero. A photo of the chart somehow made its way onto social networks like Facebook and X (Twitter) and eventually went viral. Initially, people thought it was a joke, but the man’s 27-year-old grandson confirmed that for as long as he could remember, Pereira had never drunk anything but Coke.

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A Brazilian man can consider himself lucky to be alive after he mistook a gunshot to the head for getting hit with a rock on New Year’s Eve and going about his business for four days.

21-year-old Mateus Facio was partying in Cabo Frio on December 31st of last year when he heard a loud noise, like an explosion in his head, followed by sharp pain. He instinctively put his hand up to the top of his head and felt blood. A doctor in the crowd noticed the blood dripping from his head and helped stop the bleeding, but thinking that he had just been hit by a random stone thrown by someone in the heat of the moment, Mateus just went about his business. He just applied some ice to the wound, celebrated New Year’s with friends, and then drove 300 km (186 miles) to his home in Juiz de Fora. On January 3rd, he went to work as usual, then drove to Rio de Janeiro to meet some friends, and it was only in the afternoon of the 4th that he realized something was wrong with him…

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A Brazilian man tragically lost his life by plunging down a deep shaft he had dug in his kitchen after dreaming that there was gold buried deep under his house.

71-year-old João Pimenta da Silva’s dream of enrichment ended as a nightmare that claimed his life. His lifeless body was found at the bottom of an exceptionally deep well he and his neighbors had dug under his kitchen in Ipatinga, a municipality in Brazil’s Minas Gerais state. The man had reportedly dreamt that there was gold deep under his home, and that all he had to do was dig to get to it. He even told his neighbor about his dream and even though he was laughed at in the beginning, da Silva was actually able to convince the man to assist him with the digging. Unfortunately, the treasure hunt ended in disaster when the 71-year-old plunged to his death while trying to exit the 40-meter-deep hole.

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A prison in the Brazilian state of Santa Cantarina recently replaced its guard dogs with a flock of geese that supposedly make loud noises when they detect strange noises, like someone trying to escape.

In this day and age, prison complexes feature state-of-the-art detection systems that make it very difficult for inmates to escape undetected. Still, regardless of technological advancements, it’s always a good idea to have a backup analog detection system as well, in case the sophisticated stuff fails. Human guardians and guard dogs are usually the norm, but some prisons use some unlikely alternatives. For example, several prisons in Brazil have replaced guard dogs with geese, which they say are not only just as effective, if not more so, but also cheaper to maintain. Apparently, geese have very good hearing and will make loud noises whenever they detect strange noises, thus alerting the human guards.

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A 27-year-old Brazilian woman tragically lost her life after experiencing poisoning symbols associated with a chocolate candy allegedly received from a gypsy woman who had allegedly predicted her early death.

Fernanda Silva Valoz da Cruz Pinto fell ill on August 3rd, experiencing severe stomach pains, vomiting, nosebleeds, and excessive salivation. She was rushed to Santa Casa de Misericórdia Hospital, but there was nothing doctors could do, and she died in the early hours of the following day. According to initial information provided by her family, Fernanda had told them that she had received a chocolate candy from a supposed gypsy fortune teller in the center of Maceió City who had also predicted that she would die very soon. She ate the candy that very same day, then fell ill and started experiencing poisoning symptoms.

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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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