An Irish man who swallowed an expensive diamond ring at a jewellery store in Turkey recently told prosecutors that he wasn’t himself when he did it, because he “fell into a trance” the moment he saw the beautiful diamond.

Ian Campbell, who was vacationing in the Turkish seaside resort of Marmaris, was arrested on October 4, 2018, after swallowing a $40,000 diamond ring at a local jewellery store. Eyewitnesses later told police that Campbell swallowed the jewel in desperation, after realizing that he was going to be caught trying to steal it. Prosecutors instructed police to take the would-be-thief to the local hospital, where he was administered laxatives to help him “return” the 2.5-carat diamond ring by natural means. Turkish media tracked the “journey” of the jewel through Campbell’s stomach almost in real time, but sadly it got stuck and had to be surgically removed.

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An 18-year-old boy recently shared the story of his impressive physical transformation to inspire other teenagers who consider themselves unattractive to start taking care of themselves and not to be ashamed to use makeup to improve their looks.

They say a person’s personality is more important than their physical looks, but try telling that to a high-school student who constantly gets ridiculed for their his acne, geeky glasses and poor fashion sense. The protagonist of this story knows all about that, but unlike most other teens in his situation he actually did something about it and recently took to the internet to share the details of his transformation, hoping to inspire other “ugly ducklings” to enhance their appearance.

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Leo Blanco, a 22-year-old man from Buenos Aires, in Argentina, has reportedly spent over $30,000 on plastic procedures over the last seven years, in an attempt to mimic Michael Jackson’s look.

Blanco is one of the thousands of Michael Jackson impersonators around the world, but what sets him apart from all the rest is is his obsession with looking just like his idol. He started watching the King of Pop as a young child and knew very early on that he wanted to be just like him. At age 15, Leo turned to plastic surgery to fulfill his dream of becoming a lookalike of his idol, but seven years and 11 plastic surgeries later, he is still not content with his look, and plans to alter his appearance even more.

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Authorities in the Chinese province of Hebei have created a smartphone app that allows users to see if they are within 500 meters of a person in debt so they can report or publicly shame them.

Failing to pay off your debts is generally frowned upon all over the world, but one country has been cracking down on the practice harder than any other. In the last couple of years, Chinese authorities have used a variety of techniques to coerce debtors to pay up, with public shaming being the most popular one. Last year, the local government in Hejiang county, Sichuan, started showing their faces and names during short clips played in cinemas before the main screening, and now authorities in Hebei have announced an app that detects debtors in a 500-meter-radius, allowing users to report or shame them.

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Correction: A previous version of this article stated that the name of Maruyama’s boyfriend was Li Huayu, and that the girl still lost her memory every day, when in reality this only occurred only in the first two months after her accident.  

The touching love story between an amnesia sufferer whose memory was wiped clean every morning and the loyal boyfriend who makes her fall in love with him every day has touched the hearts of millions in Japan.

“50 First Dates”, a 2004 romantic comedy starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, tells the story of a young woman whose short term memory was affected by a car crash. Every morning, her memory resets to the day of the accident, but that doesn’t deter Sandler’s character from making their relationship work, even if it means making her fall in love with him every day. It’s one of the best romantic comedies of all times, in my opinion, but I never imagined that such a love story could exist in real life. Well, a Japanese couple reportedly lived their very own “50 First Dates” romance for to months.

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Two teenage sisters in India were recently honored for their grit and determination after it was discovered that they disguised themselves as boys for four years in order to keep their father’s barbershop open after he became ill.

Jyoti Kumari, 18, and her 16-year-old sister, Neha, from Banwari Tola, in India’s Uttar Pradesh state, took over their father’s barbershop in 2014 after he suffered a severe paralytic attack that left him bedridden. The girls were only 13 and 11-years-old at the time, but the barbershop was the family’s only source of income, so they had to do something to put food on the table. At first, the barbershop was closed, but as the family savings evaporated, Jyoti and Neha reopened it and started running it themselves. But things didn’t go well at first, as some men were skeptical about having girls shave their beards and trim their mustaches, while others treated them badly. So they started disguising themselves as men.

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Most people would never use a tissue that someone else sneezed in, let alone pay $80 for one, but one Los Angeles startup claims to have already sold close to a thousand sneeze-filled tissues to people who want to catch a cold virus now so they don’t get sick with the same cold later. Does that make any sense?

Vaev bills itself a “wellness brand” although technically it’s helping people get sick by selling them tissues that complete strangers sick with the cold have allegedly sneezed into. But who in their right mind would pay $79.99 on a germ-contaminated used tissue? Well, that would be “open-minded people” who appreciate the luxury of being able to get sick “on their own terms”. Vaev founder Oliver Niessen, 34, claims that these expensive used tissues should be viewed as alternatives to conventional medicine, in that they allow you to purposely catch a cold whenever you want, in order to decrease the risk of catching that same cold at a later date. It’s basically all about choice and getting “sick on your own terms”.

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A woman in Northern Ireland lived with a plastic painkiller packet stuck in her throat for 17 days, after unknowingly swallowing it in the middle of the night.

The 40-something woman, who preferred to remain anonymous, reportedly swallowed a Tramadol pill in the middle of the night, without first taking it out of its plastic packaging. The morning after the incident, she woke up with a foreign body sensation in her throat, and went straight to the hospital where she complained of discomfort and difficulty swallowing. However, the ear, nose and throat doctor at the hospital found that she was tolerating fluids, had no difficulties breathing and could mobilize her neck without feeling any pain.

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A public utility company in the Russian city of Irkutsk has come up with an ingenious way of reminding people to pay their bills if they want to continue using their indoor toilets.

In November of last year, the Irkutsk Northern Housing and Utility Systems Directorate installed a wooden cabin toilet outside an apartment building with a sign that read “Toilet for Debtors” on the front door. This was the company’s unique way of reminding residents that it could cut off their utilities if they didn’t settle their debts. The measure was apparently so successful that the company has been moving the outdoor toilet to problem areas of the city for the last couple of months.

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Imagine looking up to gaze at the moon on a clear summer night only to see the sky full of glowing advertising billboards. That’s the future envisioned by a Russian start-up which plans to launch billboard advertisements into low-Earth orbit as early as 2021.

Russian company StartRocket announced plans to introduce orbital advertising billboards made up of a grid of tissue box-sized satellites called CubeSats. These tiny satellites will orbit 400-500 kilometers above the Earth and use reflective Mylar sails around 30 feet in diameter to catch and reflect sunlight, creating a pixelated matrix. The ads would only be visible at night but could be seen from just about anywhere on the planet. The company already has a CubeSat prototype, and could start testing its sky advertisements next year.

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Unscooped dog poo is a problem in most urban communities around the world, but one company is offering an advanced scientific solution to crack down on offenders – testing the poo for DNA and comparing it against a database of registered community pets to track down their owners.

Lazy dog owners who don’t clean up after their pets are a bane on any community, but catching them in the act or finding proof that a certain person is to blame can be very difficult. Or at least it used to be until BioVet Laboratories launched their PooPrints service, which allows housing complexes to test unscooped poo and compare the results against a database of genetic material from dogs who live in that community. Offending owners are then tracked down and fined up to $250. BioVet Laboratories are currently working with over 3,000 housing complexes in the US, Canada and the UK.

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TV viewers in China recently noticed something strange whenever certain male celebrities showed up on screen – their ears were digitally blurred as if to hide something. While Chinese television has yet to make an official statement on this issue, the measure seems meant to hide men’s earrings.

Last year, China’s media regulator banned TV stations from showing celebrities’ tattoos as well as other elements of “hip hop culture, sub-culture and immoral culture,” in an effort to minimize Western impact on China’s pop culture. It was only a matter of time before men’s earrings were targeted, and earlier this year people started noticing that earring-wearing male actors and other pop icons had their ears blurred. The hashtag #MaleTVStarsCantWearEarrings recently went viral online, with tens of thousands of people criticizing the move as discriminatory.

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A young Alabama vet student was recently arrested for allegedly pulling off one of the sickest scams imaginable. She took older horses from their owners, promising that they would live out the rest of their lives in a sanctuary, but later sold them to be slaughtered.

24-year-old Fallon Blackwood used her educational background as a veterinary student to gain the trust of horse owners who could no longer take care of their older animals. She told several of her victims that she owned an 18-acre farm in Boaz, Alabama, where she could look after the elderly horses, but only if they willingly placed them in her care, as she didn’t have the money to buy them. After taking the horses off their owners’ hands, Blackwood allegedly sold them to kill-buyers to be shipped to Mexican slaughterhouses. The third-year vet student is believed to be responsible for the disappearance of nearly 50 horses.

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A company in Shandong province, China, has come under fire for forcing six of its employees to crawl through the streets on their hands and feet as punishment for not meeting sales targets.

The humiliating procession reportedly took place in the city of Zaozhuang on January 14 and was recorded by shocked passers-by. Six people can be seen crawling on all fours through traffic behind a man carrying a red flag emblazoned with their company’s name. With no protection other than their office clothes, the punished staff struggles to keep up with the flag bearer, but somehow find the strength to keep going, probably fueled by the fear of losing their jobs.

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An Australian man from Mildura, in the state of Victoria, wanted to show the world just how hot the inside of a car can get on a hot day, so he left a raw steak inside his car for a few hours. When he came back, the steak was allegedly well done.

“Yesterday at 11am I put a porterhouse steak in my car which was parked in the shade and left it until 4pm,” the Mildura Dockside Cafe worker wrote on his Facebook page. “It was very well done upon my return. With this heatwave please remember never to leave children, elderly or animals in the car. Always check on elderly neighbors, ensure your pets have a way to keep cool and cool drinking water.”

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