A South Korean woman made international news headlines for legally adopting her adult best friend after a medical emergency made her realize that they needed a stronger connection to take care of each other.

44-year-old Eun Seo-ran grew up in a stereotypical South Korean patriarchal family in which her father was the breadwinner and her mother was consigned to the role of homemaker, serving her husband’s family. She slaved for them her entire life, but never got so much as a bit of gratitude from her spouse, but she made sure that Seo-ran followed another path in life. She never even allowed her in the kitchen as a young girl and always told her to preserve her freedom. Eun Seo-ran vowed to never end up like her mother, and decided to not get married or have children. To this day, she believes that it would be irresponsible of her to get married, but she also understands that there are situations where family members are the only ones who can help…

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A former Chinese whizkid who entered university at the age of 10 and was already a PhD candidate in Applied Mathematics at 16, spends his days doing nothing and relies on his parents for money.

Zhang Xinyang had always been destined for greatness. At just two and a half years old, he learned over a thousand Chinese characters within three months, and by age four, he was already in primary school. Born into a modest family, Zhang benefitted from his father’s tutelage and managed to skip several grades. At age six, he was already in fifth grade, and by age nine, he was enrolled in the third grade of high school. When he was ten years old, Zhang Xinyang became China’s youngest university student, getting accepted at the Tianjin University of Technology and Education. His genius surprised everyone, but as he grew, his attitude started to change…

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Western Poland’s Notecka Forest is home to one of the country’s most controversial buildings, a medieval-style complex known as Stobnica Castle.

The construction of Stobnica Castle began in 2015, but it didn’t start attracting nationwide attention until 2018, when people started wondering what this gargantuan structure rising up at the edge of a well-known nature reserve, on what looked like a man-made island on Lake Stobnica, was. Aerial photos of a 15-storey medieval-like castle rising up in the middle of a pristine natural paradise about 50 km from the city of Poznan started going viral online and piqued people’s curiosity. What was this building, who was the owner and how had they obtained a building permit for it, considering its location at the edge of a Special Protection Area for Birds (20 species) within the Natura 2000 network?

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A Chinese food vlogger found herself at the center of a social media storm after she posted a controversial video of herself killing, deboning, and cooking a 90 kg alligator.

Nowadays people do all sorts of crazy, controversial things on camera for attention, from eating tapeworm-infested fish to crashing small airplanes, but most of them draw the line at gratuitous animal cruelty. One Chinese influencer recently learned the hard way that people don’t like it when you kill, dismember, and cook a defenseless wild animal for their viewing pleasure, and that the stunt may now get her in trouble with the law. Chu Niang Xiao He, a female food vlogger with over 3.5 million followers on Douyin (China’s version of TikTok), recently posted a short clip demonstrating how to kill and prepare an alligator in the comfort of your own home. It was meant to shock and draw attention, but it also attracted a wave of negative reactions and accusations of animal cruelty.

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China’s online store is becoming increasingly dominated by AI-powered clones that never tire of trying to sell you things and can literally work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The Chinese online shopping scene is very different than what we’re used to in the West. Live streaming is by far the most lucrative marketing channel these days, with popular influencers on platforms like Taobao and Douyin able to close massive deals in just a few hours every day. However, these crazy achievements come at a cost for businesses and brands. It takes time and money to train a great online seller, and there is nothing stopping them from reaching an agreement with competitors, leaving you no option but to restart the process. Having camera crews and assistants around during the live stream also adds to the expenditures, and last, but definitely not least, every top influencer has to sleep at some point. That’s where AI-powered avatars come in…

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In a viral video that has been doing the rounds online, an African pastor can be seen entering the lion’s cage at a zoo and teasing the felines to show that nothing can happen to a man of God.

Originally posted on Instagram by @mufasatundeednut, the bizarre video shows a man wearing a blue suit playing with three young lions under the watchful eyes of several people outside the cage. The man is referred to as ‘Pastor Daniel’, and if the original poster of the clip is to be believed, the daring stunt was designed to convince his followers that he was under the protection of God, and that nothing could happen to him, even when surrounded by a bunch of lions. The bold pastor can be seen slapping the young lions and even letting one of them playfully chew on his hand.

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Danish artist Jens Haaning has been ordered to repay the Kunsten Museum in Aalborg 532,000 kroner ($76,000) after handing in two blank canvases as artworks in a project he named ‘Take the Money and Run’.

In 2021, Jens Haaning, a Danish conceptual artist whose work focuses on power and inequality, was commissioned by the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg to recreate two of his earlier artworks for which he had used a bunch of banknotes to represent the average income in Denmark and Austria. The artist agreed and the museum provided about 532,000 kroner ($76,000) for him to recreate the art pieces, including a fee of 40,000 kroner. Only when the museum staff unpacked the two artworks from Haaning, they found two blank canvases titled ‘Take the Money and Run’.

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A Kentucky oncologist who studied nearly 5,000 near-death experience cases over the last 37 years, claims that he has come to believe that “there’s certainly an afterlife”.

Jeffrey Long was an oncology resident when he first came across an article describing a near-death experience. He was studying how to best treat cancer using radiation at a library when he came across this fascinating case that ended up changing his life. Up to that point, he had been taught that people were either alive or dead, but here was this cardiologist describing the incredible experience of a patient who had died and then came back to life. Long was eager to learn more about near-death experiences or NDEs, and he became so obsessed with them that after his residency he founded the Near-Death Experience Research Foundation, and he has since collected and studied thousands of NDEs. His conclusion – there is definitely life after death.

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The head of a property agency in Iran was recently arrested for helping a couple with no human heirs transfer the property rights to their apartment to their pet dog.

The unnamed Iranian businessman ended up in jail and had his real estate firm shut down earlier this month after a video showing him officiating an unusual property transfer went viral on social media. In the short clip, the man can be seen preparing paperwork which is then signed by a human couple, and then by their pet dog, Chester. Well, technically, the owners just took the pooch’s paw, put some ink on it, and then put it on the contract, but we guess that’s what counts as a canine signature. The agent can be heard describing the property, and once the deal is done, Chester’s owners can be seen hugging and congratulating the dog. Iranian authorities didn’t share their happiness, though…

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A woman allergic to peanuts claims to have had no choice but to buy all the peanut packets on board a plane so staff couldn’t offer them to other passengers, thus putting her life at risk.

Leah Williams was on a Eurowings flight from London to Dusseldorf, in Germany, when she noticed the cabin crew getting ready to serve snacks to the passengers. Because she suffers from a severe nut allergy, she felt it necessary to let the flight attendants know as well so they could inform the other passengers about it and refrain from serving peanuts during the flight. Only she claims that the cabin crew was less than empathetic to her health problems, leaving her no choice but to buy all the packets of peanuts available, just so they couldn’t serve them to other people. She ended up spending £144 ($184) on 48 packets of peanuts, almost three times the price of the ticket of the plane ticket. She is now requesting a refund.

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An Australian woman believed to have invited her former in-laws over for lunch only to serve them highly poisonous mushrooms claims she knew nothing about the poisonous ingredients and had no reason to hurt her guests.

Two weeks ago, Erin Patterson, a 48-year-old woman from Leongatha, near Melbourne, invited her ex-husband’s parents to her house for lunch. She and her ex had reportedly split on ‘amicable’ terms, so she and her former in-laws still maintained a friendly relationship. Gail and Don Patterson arrived with another couple, Heather, Gail’s sister, and her husband Ian. The meal was uneventful, but a few hours later, the two elderly couples started complaining about gastrointestinal problems. Around midnight, the symptoms had become so severe, that they were taken to a hospital in Melbourne. Unfortunately, a few days later, three of them passed away, while Ian Wilkinsons was left fighting for his life, awaiting a liver transplant. Meanwhile, Erin Patterson exhibited no symptoms whatsoever.

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Gordos, a popular restaurant in Holon, Israel, has been getting a lot of attention online because of its latest dessert – a real toilet bowl full of chocolate ice cream.

I don’t care how much you like chocolate ice cream, you can’t tell me that you don’t find “Third House of Shit”, the controversial dessert available at Gordos just a little bit off-putting. Don’t get me wrong, I for one would still shovel the entire bowl down my throat, but I’d have to get over my initial disgust to do it. I mean, just look at it! The smeared toilet bowl and the way the chocolate ice cream is shaped like turds, it’s definitely not the most appetizing dessert I’ve ever seen. But I guess the wow factor is more important, and so far the unusual dessert has been getting a lot of attention on social media.

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A Shanghai woman has become famous in her home country for promoting the physical and psychological benefits of hugging trees.

Qishishiqi hugged her first tree back in April, while out on the tow with her husband. Feeling a little tipsy, the woman hugged a random tree on an empty street in Shanghai and immediately felt positive effects. A constant ringing in the ears that she claimed was caused by work-related stress ‘magically disappear’ while hugging the thick tree trunk, and this ‘superb’ first experience motivated her to not only look for other trees to hug but also share her story with others so that they may also benefit from it.

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The StockCam is an unusual camera cage for photography enthusiasts who need multiple mounting points for various accessories, as well as stability and better camera handling. It’s also shaped like an assault rifle…

If you’re a photographer who’s also into guns, you’ll probably love the design of the StockCam. It combines the functionality and convenience of a high-quality camera cage, with the aesthetics of a modern assault rifle. It even features a trigger to activate the shutter or lock the cage to ensure that the shutter doesn’t accidentally get pressed. You actually use it by pressing the stock against your shoulder and looking into the camera display as you would in a gun scope, and then press the trigger to shoot, as in take a picture. But can you imagine using one of these things around police?

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A ramen shop in Yunlin, Taiwan is giving the phrase “exotic food” a whole new meaning with its latest dish, a ramen bowl containing an uncut, unpeeled frog.

“Frog Frog Frog Ramen” (蛙呀蛙呀蛙拉麵), the latest item on the menu of Taiwanese ramen shop Yuan Ramen (圓拉麵) recently went viral on social media because of a certain ingredient – a large, unpeeled frog perched atop the bowl of noodles. The Yulin-based shop only recently posted photos of the bizarre dish, asking fans to suggest names for it on Facebook. It also announced that the frog ramen would be available on Tuesday and Wednesday nights, in very limited quantities, for the price of NT$250 (US$8) per bowl. But if you only want to come in and take pictures of the frog ramen, you can do that for just NT$100 ($3.20).

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