A Dutch man was fined 380 euros ($400) after an AI-powered camera caught him talking on his phone while driving. Only he claims he was only scratching his head and the system made a mistake.

In November of last year, Tim Hansen received a fine for allegedly speaking on his mobile phone while driving a month earlier. He was shocked, mainly because he didn’t remember using his phone at the wheel on that particular day, so he decided to check the incriminating photo on the Central Judicial Collection Agency. At first glance, it seems that Tim is indeed talking on his phone, but a closer look reveals that he isn’t actually holding anything in his hand. He was simply scratching the side of his head and the camera mistook the position of his hand for it holding a phone. What is even more baffling is that the human who checked the photo and validated his fine didn’t spot the “false positive” either.

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In what is believed to be the first ever such documented case, researchers in India came across a live frog with a small mushroom growing on the side of its body.

The Last of Us, the hit HBO series based on the namesake video game series, has popularized the fictional idea of mushrooms and fungi infecting humans and turning them into mindless zombies. In reality, fungi from the cordyceps family only infect insects, but a team of Indian researchers recently made a discovery that speaks to the adaptability of these microorganisms and their ability to survive and thrive in the most unusual conditions. While observing the fauna around a small pond in the foothills of the Kudremukha Ranges, India, hobbyist naturalist Chinmay Maliye and wetland specialist Lohit Y.T. came across a frog with a mushroom sprouting from its flank.

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A woman recently tried to sneak out of a private hospital in Istanbul, Turkey, hours after undergoing plastic surgery in order to avoid having to pay for the procedure.

The incident reportedly took place last week at a private hospital in Istanbul’s Sisli neighborhood and was captured on camera by passers-by. In a short clip that has been doing the rounds online, a woman wearing a hospital robe and white slippers can be seen arguing with doctors and nurses trying to stop her from leaving. The woman’s face is visibly swollen and almost completely covered in bandages, which makes sense when considering she had only undergone extensive plastic surgery just hours prior. What makes less sense is the woman’s motives for leaving her hospital bed as soon as her anesthesia wore off – trying to avoid covering the bill for the procedure.

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A 64-year-old Japanese woman from Tokyo’s Katsushika Ward has admitted to counterfeiting luxury bags and wallets in the comfort of her own home and selling them in her small shop as originals.

The unnamed woman’s story began a few years ago when she opened a small bag shop in Katsushika where she tried to sell her original bags. Unfortunately, business wasn’t very good, especially on weekdays, and things only got worse when the pandemic hit. But, as it often happens in our darkest moments, the woman came up with a solution to her problem at the peak of the pandemic. She was watching TV when she saw a segment on the popularity of designer bags and accessories and decided that riding that same wave was her way to success. After doing a bit of research, she found branded fabric and synthetic leather online, ordered some, and began making luxury bag knockoffs using her sewing machine.

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A TikTok plastic surgeon known as ‘Dr Kim’ has gone viral for his uncanny before-and-after videos showcasing the radical transformation of his patients who are sometimes left looking unnatural.

Dr Kim’s TikTok page originally went viral last year, when people first noticed his weird before-and-after clips, but one of his videos recently attracted even more attention, making headlines all over the world and sparking a heated debate online. While many users of the popular video-sharing platform are convinced that Dr Kim is either one of the world’s worst plastic surgeons or that his account is some kind of joke, some believe that people’s perception is skewed by the short period of time between the before and after shots. Patients’ faces are not completely healed and they often still have bruises or are visibly swollen, but that’s how Dr Kim chooses to share their transformation.

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Diaper-wearing adults looking for a safe space to role-play as babies can now head to the new Diaper Spa in Atkinson, New Hampshire, that caters to the needs of all diaper lovers.

Set up by physician Dr. Colleen Murphy, the Diaper Spa seeks to serve all diaper-wearing individuals above the age of 21 looking for acceptance and care, or simply for a safe space to engage in ‘richly immersive experiences’ that involve adult diapers. Activities listed on the venue’s website include playtime, story time, nap time, cuddle time, changing time, coloring, nursery rhymes, and sing-a-longs. Prices start at $100 per hour and go all the way up to $1,500 for a 24-hour stay at its bed & breakfast. The recently opened Diaper Spa has sparked controversy in Atkinson because of its unusual services, but Dr. Murphy claims that her brainchild is not about weird fetishes, but about dealing with trauma.

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A rather bizarre act of vandalism was recently reported at an art exhibition in Moscow, where a security guard damaged an art exhibit and tried to eat it.

Last week, the organizers of a contemporary art exhibition at Moscow’s VDNKh permanent exhibition center noticed that one of the exhibits was missing its main protagonist. Named “Escape of the Goldfish”, the art piece featured a goldfish bowl with a goldfish sticking out of it right next to a painting of the open sea, with another goldfish stuck to it as if it had jumped from the bowl and into the waves. A thought-provoking concept, and one that caught the eye of the security guard on duty, only instead of admiring it from a distance and doing his job, the guy vandalized the very thing he was paid to protect.

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A Frenchman who spent the last 8 years assembling over 700,000 matchsticks into a 23-foot-tall replica of the Eiffel Tower has been denied the Guinness World Record because he didn’t use commercially available matchsticks.

Imagine putting your heart and soul into a project for almost a decade only to have your dream shattered at the very end due to a detail that never crossed your mind. That’s what 47-year-old Richard Plaud went through when he was denied the chance to have his name mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records after building the world’s tallest matchstick Eiffel Tower. He started working on the complex model in 2015 and poured roughly 4,200 hours of work into it over the last 8 years, painstakingly gluing 706,900 matchsticks into 402 panels that he then assembled into the impressive structure. But last year, as he was getting ready to complete the project, Plaud learned that his Eiffel Tower model wasn’t eligible for a Guinness Record.

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A group of Chinese scientists claims to have created the world’s first ‘AI child’, an entity displaying behavior and capabilities similar to those of a three- or four-year-old human child.

Named Tong Tong or ‘Little Girl’, the world’s first AI child is considered a massive step in the direction of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). Unveiled at the Frontiers of General Artificial Intelligence Technology Exhibition, the innovative AI model is reportedly capable of autonomous learning and may display a level of emotional engagement that has not been seen in AI development until now. According to her creators at the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence (BIGAI), Tong Tong continually improves her skills and knowledge through interaction with humans and exploration.

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A 71-year-old Florida woman is accused of assaulting and trying to kill her husband of 52 years over a postcard he received from a woman in Turkey that he had dated six decades ago.

They say we get wiser and more understanding as we get older, but apparently, jealousy never gets old. 71-year-old Bertha Yalter of North Miami Beach is facing charges of attempted murder and aggravated battery on a person 65 and older after allegedly attacking her husband in a feat of rage. According to the arrest report, Yalter tried to smother her elderly husband with a pillow after learning that he had received a postcard from a woman in Turkey whom he had dated around 60 years ago. The attack occurred at the couple’s condominium in the Eastern Shores area of North Miami Beach and left the visibly frail man with bruises and open lacerations on both of his arms and stomach area, as well as bleeding bite marks.

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A Russian man vacationing in Pattaya, Thailand has been caught on camera shaving a local barber’s head in revenge for the disatisfactory haircut he had received.

The shocking footage that has been doing the rounds online for over a week shows a Caucasian man getting a haircut at the Salute Barbershop in Pattaya. According to eye witnesses, he walked into the venue and explained to one of the barbers there how he wanted his hair cut using hand gestures because he allegedly didn’t speak very good English. At one point, the man, who was later identified as a Russian tourist, looked into the mirror and flew into a feat of rage over the botched haircut. He started slamming his fists on the table and swearing at the barber, before picking up the shears and shaving part of his fringe as revenge.

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A 23-year-old Russian man recently revealed that he trained and used ChatGPT to filter through 5,239 girls’ dating profiles and then date the best matches until he found his soon-to-be wife.

Alexander Zhadan first made waves on RuNet – the online Russian-speaking community – a year ago, when he tweeted that he wrote an academic thesis using ChatGPT in just 23 hours. A few days ago, the young Russian IT professional once again made news headlines, this time for using the same AI tool to filter through thousands of online dating profiles and relying on its tips and advice to find the perfect partner and then make her his wife. Zhadan’s story, originally told through a series of posts on X/Twitter, has sparked a heated debate on the morality of using AI tools to find love online, and while the 23-year-old admits that his story could change how others see online dating, he did point out that ChatGPT has its limitations and that he needed to get involved personally to connect with his dates.

It all started with Alexander’s disappointing experience with popular dating apps like Tinder. He would swipe left, then right, then spark a conversation with a potential match and then that person would just disappear. It was a huge waste of time, but having become familiar with ChatGPT, he wondered if there was a way to use the AI tool to make his online dating experience more efficient.

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A Hong Kong finance worker at a multinational company was tricked into transferring $25 million to scammers after attending a video conference with deepfake CFO and several colleagues.

Hong Kong police recently reported that it is investigating an elaborate scam that saw a group of bad actors defraud a multinational firm of $200 million Hong Kong dollars ($25.6 million) using deepfake technology to impersonate company management during a video call. Fraudsters initially targeted one of the unnamed company’s finance workers with an email from the company’s UK-based chief financial officer (CFO). Seeing that the message involved a ‘secret transaction’ to the tune of $200 million Hong Kong dollars, the man suspected it was a phishing email, but those doubts were put to rest when he was invited to a video conference with the CFO and several other colleagues he recognized.

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Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science recently fired the director of the prestigious Institute of General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences allegedly for controversial remarks that are incompatible with science.

Geneticist Alexander Kudryavtsev was named director of the General Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in June of 2021 and was scheduled to carry out his mandate until 2027, but last month, Russia’s Ministry of Education and Science announced that Kudryavtsev had been relieved of his duties and replaced. His sacking was immediately linked to a series of controversial statements made in March of last year, during the 3rd International Scientific and Theological Conference “God – Man – World”. The Russian scientist claimed that before the biblical flood, humans used to live for up to 900 years, but that their lifespan has shortened since then due to “original, ancestral and personal sin.”

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A stretch of beach in Hakodate City, Japan’s Hokkaido Prefecture, has been dubbed ‘Fishbone Beach’ after being covered by a thick layer of brittle fish bones.

In December of last year, thousands of tons of dead fish were washed ashore in Hokkaido, in an event that many linked to the release of treated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the ocean. But that was 600 miles away, and several experts labeled the theory as completely false. About 80 percent of the dead fish were sardines and the rest were other species of small fish, like mackerel. They covered a stretch of 1.5 km along the coast of Hakodate, and the local government dealt with the fish washed ashore via incineration, leaving the ones in the water to naturally decompose. What they didn’t expect was for the fish bones to turn the beach into a veritable fish graveyard.

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