Scientists from Finland and the United States have developed a special type of chewing gum that can ‘trap’ and neutralize some influenza and herpes viruses.

When asked to think about the best thing to fight the flu and herpes with, most people probably wouldn’t say ‘chewing gum’, but according to a new study published in the Molecular Therapy journal, the humble chewing gum could prove extremely effective at fighting off certain viruses. A medical-grade gum made primarily from lablab bean powder ground from the seeds of the Lablab purpureus species, which contain a natural viral trap protein called FRIL, has shown great potential for neutralizing certain types of viruses, including influenza and herpes-causing viruses, in lab tests.

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Siddharth Nandyala, a 14-year-old teenager from Dallas, has developed an AI-powered smartphone app called Circadian AI, which can detect heart disease within 7 seconds based only on sound.

It’s safe to say that Siddharth Nandyala is not your typical 14-year-old. He is the world’s youngest AI-certified professional, holding certifications from both Oracle and ARM, and he is poised to revolutionize cardiovascular disease detection with an AI-powered smartphone app capable of detecting heart disease in seconds by analyzing heart sound recordings. Circadian AI reportedly uses advanced algorithms that analyze heart sounds picked up by a smartphone and quickly provide a diagnosis that could save the user’s life. The innovative app has been tested on over 15,000 patients in the US and 700 patients in India, with an accuracy of 96 percent.

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A 26-year-old Chinese programmer who got a vigorous neck massage to relieve pain narrowly avoided permanent paralysis after suffering a stroke.

Xiao Zhang (pseudonym), a young IT professional from Changsha, China’s Hunan Province, often suffered from neck pain due to spending many hours at his desk. After learning that traditional massage could help relieve neck pain, he decided to try it out at a local massage parlor. Everything was going great until he felt a sharp pain in his neck during a more vigorous maneuver by the massage therapist, which was shortly followed by a strong headache. He didn’t think too much of these symptoms, but the very next morning, he woke up with numbness and weakness of the left side of his body, as well as slurred speech. Scared, the 26-year-old rushed to the Second People’s Hospital of Hunan Province, where he was diagnosed with a secondary cerebral infarction.

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A young man in Russia was hospitalized and treated for kidney failure after doing 2,000 squats to win a bet with a friend.

Doctors at the nephrology department at the Vladivostok Clinical Hospital No. 2, in Primorsky Krai, Russia, recently reported the unusual case of a man in his early 20s who was hospitalized with severely reduced kidney function as a result of physical overextension. The patient told doctors that his troubles began after winning a bet with a friend who challenged him to do 2,000 squats in a set period of time. Confident in his physical abilities, he accepted, but after completing the challenge, he began experiencing troubling symptoms. His legs, which had never failed him before, became sore and extremely swollen, his urine turned dark brown, and before long, he couldn’t urinate at all. Scared, he sought medical help and was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis.

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A 19-year-old Chinese girl has gone viral after posting a video demonstrating her unusual ability to pop her kneecaps out and then back in painlessly because of a condition she was born with.

The unnamed girl from Jiangssi claims that she never even knew her kneecaps were special until schoolmates saw her popping them out of their sockets randomly and then casually popping them back in. Some of them freaked out and told her to see a doctor, but her knees had been like this for as long as she could remember. Nevertheless, she decided to follow her friends’ advice and see a doctor, who confirmed that she had congenital “patella dislocation”, which caused her patellas (kneecaps) to pop out randomly and pop back in just as easily. The physician said that the condition was rare in girls, but reassured the youth that, as long as it didn’t cause her pain or impede with day-to-day activities, it wasn’t a problem.

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A team of Chinese plastic surgeons recently reported the bizarre case of a 33-year-old woman who had lost no less than five contact lenses behind her left eye.

The patient, referred to only as Ms. A, arrived at the Plastic Surgery Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, in Beijing, to have her hemifacial atrophy treated in order to improve her facial symmetry. The initial examination results showed that the left side of her face was atrophied and her left eyeball was slightly sunken. After carefully examining the woman’s face, the medical team decided to use autologous fat grafting to mitigate the effects of her condition. What they didn’t count on was finding not one but five different contact lenses while grafting fat into the empty space behind the eyeball. She told doctors that she had lost several contact lenses in the past few months, but never imagined they were stuck in her eye.

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A Vietnamese hospital recently reported the extremely rare case of a 24-year-old man who had a wooden chopstick lodged in his eye socket for three weeks without noticing.

The unnamed man was admitted to the Can Tho University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Vietnam’s Can Tho Province when he came in with symptoms of pain and swelling in his left eye. The 24-year-old patient told doctors that he had been experiencing the symptoms for about three weeks but they had gotten worse in recent days. He had previously sought medical help at another facility in his hometown, but after assessing his vision and checking for foreign objects, they prescribed medicine that proved ineffective. This led the man to the Can Tho University Hospital, where doctors once again confirmed that he had 10/10 vision, with no signs of eyeball injury. However, the left eye did appear swollen and there was a small pus discharge from the corner of his left eye. A subsequent CT scan showed that he had a 9-cm-long foreign body lodged in his eye socket.

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A three-inch jawbreaker candy managed to live up to its name after causing a 19-year-old woman to literally break her jaw by trying to bite into it.

Canadian student Javeria Wasim had seen videos of people biting into small jawbreaker candies, but she had never seen anyone successfully bite through a big three-inch jawbreaker, so she decided to try it. It turned out to be the worst decision of her life because she only managed to dent the outer layer of the hard candy when she felt a piercing pain in her lower jaw. The young woman’s friend then pointed out that one of her teeth was chipped and when Javeria checked it herself, she realized that another tooth felt wiggly when touched. At this point, the 19-year-old student could barely open her mouth without screaming in pain, so her friend called an ambulance. An X-ray later showed that the reason her tooth was wiggly was that she had fractured her mandible in two places trying to bite into the jawbreaker.

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American start-up Heliospect Genomics is charging wealthy parents-to-be up to $50,000 to screen their embryos for IQ and other desirable traits.

Wish you could ensure your unborn child has a higher-than-average IQ? Well, apparently now you can, with the help of genetic enhancement technology. This is controversial territory, as it tends to normalize the idea of superior” and “inferior” humans,, but according to undercover video footage obtained by the campaign group Hope Not Hate, at least one genomic prediction company has begun selling its services to parents who can afford them. Heliospect Genomics has apparently already offered its services to over a dozen parents undergoing in-vitro fertilization, charging them up to $50,000 to screen 100 embryos for IQ and other traits and boasting that their technology could help select children with IQ scores six points higher than those conceived naturally.

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Doctors at a hospital in New Delhi, India, were shocked to find a live 3-centimeter cockroach in the small intestine of a patient complaining of stomach ache and indigestion.

A 23-year-old man recently came to the Fortis Hospital, Vasal Kunj, to complain about stomach problems that he had been experiencing for about three days. He complained of severe abdominal pain, and difficulty in digesting food which resulted in frequent bloating. The man had consumed street food at a night market a few days prior and suspected that to be the cause of his health problems. Doctors decided that the best course of action was to conduct an Upper Gastrointestinal (GI) Endoscopy, a procedure that examines the upper part of the gastrointestinal tract, to hopefully discover the cause of the man’s symptoms. What they certainly didn’t expect to find was a live cockroach chilling in the man’s small intestine.

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A 13-year-old Chinese boy was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis, a life-threatening condition, after being asked to do 1,000 squats as punishment during summer camp.

Ms. Lu, a mother-of-one from Jining, in China’s Shandong Province, recently revealed the tragic story of how her teenage son suffered a corporeal punishment that threatened to leave him disabled for life. It all happened last summer when the boy was enrolled in a 7-day camp where he could interact with other kids and engage in physical activities. Everything was fine until graduation day when the parents received pictures from the ceremony in which their son had visibly red eyes and a sad expression. His father noticed that one of the boy’s legs appeared limp, but when they asked the camp organizers about him, they were told everything was alright. It was only when they went to pick him up that they realized the seriousness of the situation. Their 13-year-old boy was waiting for them on a stool because he could barely stand up.

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A Chinese man who frequently used a massage gun on his face and eyes had to undergo surgery after suffering lens dislocation and developing cataracts at the age of 42.

Mr. Luo, a fitness enthusiast from Wuhan, in Central China, purchased a battery-powered massage gun at the recommendation of a fitness instructor who told him it would work wonders on his tired muscles. After hitting the gym every two days, Luo was looking for a way to relax, and the massage gun proved incredibly effective. So much so that at one point, the 42-year-old man decided to use it on his eyes as well. Due to his busy work schedule, Luo’s eyes always felt tired and dry, so he thought that the massage gun would have the same effect on his eyes as it did on his muscles. He was wrong!

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A 36-year-old Thai man who admitted to having only a Grade 9 education has been arrested for performing penis enlargement procedures for 20 years without a medical license.

Kittikorn Songsri, a 36-year-old man from the city of Samut Sakhon, in Central Thailand, was arrested last week following a sting operation at a townhouse where he had been conducting various penis enlargement procedures over the last two decades. Songsri admitted to advertising his services via social media and operating on at least two or three patients every month, despite having no medical training or license. He told police that he had taught himself how to do implants when he was 14, and he had been doing it ever since. Unfortunately, he was reported to the authorities by a disgruntled patient who suffered a serious infection following a silicone infection.

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A Japanese acupuncture clinic has gone viral for the large number of needles it sticks into patients to help cure them of physical and spiritual ailments.

Acupuncture has been around for thousands of years, but practitioners often develop their own techniques in order to stand out from the competition. One such example is the Shirakawa acupuncture clinic in Tokyo, Japan, which relies on a large number of needles inserted in various parts of the body including the face, to relieve patients of all sorts of ailments, from muscle stiffness to bad luck and even possession by evil spirits. The clinic reportedly charges upwards of 200,000 yen ($1,400) per session and is very popular with Japanese celebrities and athletes.

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A Chinese man who felt something crawling up his nose one night experienced particularly bad breath for three days before discovering he had a cockroach stuck in his trachea.

A 58-year-old man in Haikou, China’s Hainan Province, recently experienced an entomophobe’s worst nightmare. One night, as he was sleeping, he woke up with a strange sensation that something was crawling up his nose. Then he felt something go down his throat, so he started coughing, but nothing came out so he just went back to sleep. The following day, he put the whole incident to the back of his mind and just went about his business until he realized he had particularly bad breath. Even after three days, his breath still smelled disgusting, and he also started coughing up yellow sputum, so he decided to seek medical help.

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