Everybody is talking about cryptocurrencies these days, but very few actually understand the concept and the technology that underpins digital money. The latest craze in this space is a game called CryptoKitties which has players spending insane amounts of money on…well, virtual cats. According to some estimates, more than 6,000 people are trading in electronic cats, with the total transaction volume exceeding $7 million as of last week. And these are figures for a game that debuted as recently as November 28!

CryptoKitties is the creation of Axiom Zen and runs on the Ethereum platform. Ethereum, the second-most popular cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, is having a bit of an infrastructure problem because the kitty mania is putting a severe strain on its network. The rabid interest in CryptoKitties has led to a spike in traffic, accounting for more than 11% of the total at present. And some of the cartoon-like felines are changing hands for eye-popping amounts, the record belonging to one that sold for the digital equivalent of over $117,000.

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Sometimes, when you tuck into your favorite meal, you may go, “Wow, I could eat nothing else for the rest of my days!” Could you really? What if you never, ever get to taste anything else? This might be the case with Micah Gabriel Masson Lopez – a two-year-old boy from Montreal, Canada who lives only on peaches.He suffers from a serious condition called food-protein induced enterocolitis syndrome (FPIES), which causes a severe allergy to virtually any food other than peaches.

Little Micah has hardly ever had a pain-free day. In addition to FPIES, he suffers from an immunodeficiency called DiGeorge syndrome and a rare genetic condition known as 15Q13.3 micro-duplication. Every month, his parents have to take him to nine different specialists, and the medical costs are taking a heavy toll. So is the cost of ensuring a steady supply of peaches, which can be a problem to find off-season in Quebec. His parents are so desperate that they have launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise money that will help them with all the expenses.

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The city of San Diego, California is set to pay its former Mayor Roger Hedgecock’s wife almost $85,000 for a fall on a damaged sidewalk in Pacific Beach that allegedly caused one of her breast implants to rupture.

Cynthia Hedgecock, 70, claims that she tripped and fell onto her chest while walking on Morrell Street toward Grand Avenue, on July 31, 2015. She testified that she was carrying folders in one hand, and her phone in the other, which prevented her from adequately breaking her fall, after tripping. She landed on her chest, which caused severe damage to her breast implants. Now, a judge has ordered the city to pay her $85,000 as compensation.

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A 29-year-old man from Guangzhou, China experienced sudden paralysis of all four limbs after spending two consecutive days playing on his mobile phone. The man reportedly spent a lot of his time looking down at his handheld, but this latest gaming marathon was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Late last month, the yet unidentified gamer spent two consecutive days trying to advance as much as possible in the mobile video game he was so passionate about. In the early hours of the third day, he felt a sudden pain and stiffness in his neck. Within moments all four of his limbs went numb, and he found himself paralyzed. His family rushed him to the emergency department of Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, where, after an MRI and other tests, Shen Huiyong, the orthopedic specialist, diagnosed him with cervical spondylosis hematoma. That meant that his paralysis was caused by blood clots in his cervical spinal tube pressing against his spinal cord.

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Humans have been riding horses for thousands of years, but one Ukrainian strongman proves that horses can sometimes ride us too. Champion powerlifter Dmytro Khaladzhi has been making quite a name for himself by carrying live, fully conscious horses on his back to prove his incredible strength.

Like most strongmen, Dmytro Khaladzhi does a lot of crazy stuff, like letting trucks drive over him, bending steel rods with his teeth, or driving nails through wood with the palm of his hand, but his horse carrying routines are by far the most impressive. Several videos doing the rounds online show him grabbing full-grown horses, lifting them on his back and taking a few steps with the incredible load, all while the confused animals enjoy the ride.

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Although stretch marks are a typical, albeit annoying, part of life, most people wish that they could make them permanently disappear. There is an entire industry built around creams, lotions, and even surgery to help conceal these imperfections, but a Brazilian tattoo artist has developed a much simpler, more effective solution.

Rodolpho Torres, of São Paulo, uses flesh colored ink to hide stretch marks as well as circles under the eye. His exact method is a closely guarded secret, but we know that it involves creating an optical illusion via tattoo shading. Anvisa (National Agency of Sanitary Surveillance) has approved his ink, and he personalizes each mixture to achieve a tone similar to that of the client’s skin. The ink blends into the stretch marks and dark circles, giving them the color of the skin. Once the tattoos have healed, the client’s skin appears smoother, and after sixty days they can sunbathe without the risk of spots developing.

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During the holiday season, the Nishi Tokyo Bus Company operates a rescue bus called the ‘Nesugoshi Kyusai’ bus (overslept rescue bus)  to pick up inebriated passengers who fell asleep and miss their stop. It meets passengers at the final station and delivers them back to their regular stop for the relatively small fee – when compared to a hotel room – of 880 yen (7.85 USD).

The rescue bus was the idea of a Nishi Tokyo Bus driver who pitched it to the company four years ago and they have been offering the service ever since. During the 2016 holiday season alone 75 passengers utilized the rescue bus, including 32 on the busiest night. This year, the rescue bus will operate every Friday evening throughout the month of December, as that is when the majority of company end-of-the-year drinking parties (called “bonenkai” in Japanese) take place.

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An Indian driver has received the Manush Sanman award for not honking once in the past 18 years. It may seem a strange award, but India is well known for the chaos of its roads, and the typical driver’s almost constant use of the car horn. Dipak Das, a Kolkata-based driver, believes that India can change this and eventually achieve peaceful, quiet roads.

Honking is a huge part of the driving experience in India, as people pretty much use them as an alternative to side mirrors. Some cars don’t even have side mirrors, while others have them folded, as to extend them outward could lead to collisions with other vehicles. Instead, Indian motorists honk incessantly to avoid collisions on the road where traffic is chaotic and so dense that cars appear just about to bump into each other at all times. Drivers honk to indicate that they’re about to make a pass or to indicate that another driver is too close. This creates unbearable noise pollution that many consider hugely detrimental to Indian society.

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It’s the stuff fairy tales are made off: parents are parted from their child, years or decades pass, and then chance or fate reunites them. This, however, is no fairy tale but a very real one and involves a Chinese couple and the daughter they had to give up to ensure her survival. And as it happens in real life, things don’t always go smoothly. Qian Fenxiang and her husband Xu Lida finally met their daughter Jingzhi, 22 years after they left her as a newborn baby in a vegetable market. The girl was adopted by an American family and grew up as Catherine Su Pohler, or Kati for short.

The Kodak moment reunion was made possible by the note Qian left with her baby girl. Kati’s adoptive parents, Ken and Ruth Pohler of Hudsonville, Michigan, were deeply moved by the contents and decided they would tell the girl one day if she wanted to know. When the day of the revelation came in 2016, Kati was 21 and a college student. It took another year before she got to meet her birth parents on the famed Broken Bridge in Hangzhou.

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A 22-year-old woman from Hong Kong has undergone over 30 plastic surgery procedures in a bid to impress her boyfriend. Berry Ng began getting the procedures when she was only 17, as she wanted to look more like western supermodels. She now regrets her decisions.

Berry NG claims that her plastic surgery addiction began when she saw a beauty center offering affordable student packages that cost HKD 799 (102 USD) for three injections. However, over the course of a few hours, the beautician persuaded her to go for a more expensive package costing HKD 17,000 (2175 USD). Berry was so pleased with the results that she began to seek more treatments and soon found herself addicted to cosmetic surgery. However, things got even worse when she was 20 years old and entered into a romantic relationship with a man nine years her senior.

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Consider yourself a person of bold fashion choices AND have 210 pounds ($280) to spare? In that case, the tube scarf created by Bulgarian knitwear designer label Dukyana could be just the winter pick for you. Beware, though: this piece of woolen clothing has no arm holes and is really a beige mohair tube that covers the entire body from the neck down, folding over the shoulders. Lots of people have lots to say about this product, some declaring that it resembles a giant sock.

Dukyana is the trade name chosen by a Bulgarian woman called Milena Bunalova, who offers the clothes knitted by herself and her five-member team through third-party retailers and her own website. According to the label, the tube scarf (or sock dress or however you choose to describe it) is a fashion statement. Dukyana hopes the creation will become a hit this winter and sees it as an excellent solution for ladies who favor long walks out in the chilly air. The label also says that the fashion article does not stretch and hugs a woman’s body tightly.

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What was supposed to be a bit of fun turned into a crying game for Arran Maye, a 28-year-old plumber from Leicester. While vacationing with 20 friends in the Spanish city of Benidorm, the Briton invested 9 pounds ($12) in a henna tattoo that left him sporting a handlebar mustache and a chin beard. The idea was to get into the spirit of Benidorm Fiesta, a local fancy dress festival, but things went from bad to worse when Arran experienced an intense allergic reaction to the henna ink, which may leave him with permanent scars.

Adam Lewis, another member of the British partying bunch, got the same tattoos as Arran, but while his tattoos faded within a few days, Arran’s were much more problematic. On top of the excruciating pain he experienced, his face ballooned and started oozing puss. It tuned out that the henna used on Arran was an illegal variety called black henna, which contains the chemical PPD. It caused a severe allergic reaction and ultimately landed him in intensive care, with one of the consequences being potentially permanent scars in the shape of a handlebar mustache and a small beard.

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A Belgian man had to be cut free from his art installation after failing to liberate himself after 19 days. Mikes Poppe had tethered himself by the ankle to a three-meter (10ft) chain that ran through a massive four-ton block of marble and spent 438 hours attempting to chisel his way to freedom.

The performance took place in the courthouse of the coastal Belgian city of Ostend. Poppe ate, slept, and washed there while chained to the block, all while live streaming to Youtube. He worked toward liberation from his self-imposed captivity by chiseling toward the stone every day, but after 19 days had to be cut free by a workman with an angle grinder.

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We all have our phobias. Some people run for their lives at the sight of insects or reptiles, others hate tight spaces like elevators, or stepping on the roof of a tall building. And while most people can live perfectly normal lives despite their phobias, there are also those who let the fear dominate their lives. A case in point is a doomsday-fearing octogenarian in the U.S. state of Utah, who dedicated more than three decades of his life to building bunkers and cabins on state and Government land and stuffing them with provisions and weapons.

The Iron County Sheriff’s Office, which is investigating the case along with the FBI and other law enforcement bodies, has so far declined to identify the man, revealing only that he resides in the town of Parowan. According to official information released so far, the man acted out of fear that the world might end or that society as we know it might somehow collapse. The structures he built are located in a forest bordering the ski town of Brian Head.

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German architect Marc Wübbenhorst has to drink at least 20 liters of water a day or risk dying from dehydration. The 35-year-old suffers from the rare metabolic disease Diabetes insipidus, which causes intense thirst and the frequent excretion of large amounts of diluted urine. If Wübbenhorst stops drinking water, his body starts to dry out, and he can die of thirst in a matter of hours.

Constant thirst has been a part of Marc Wübbenhorst’s life for as long as he can remember. It’s nothing like the thirst a normal person experiences, because it doesn’t go away after drinking a glass or two of water. His body can’t hold any water, as his kidneys eliminate the fluids almost as fast as he ingests them. Marc can never ignore his thirst for more than an hour, because he starts to experience severe symptoms of dehydration, like cracked lips, dizziness and confusion. These are symptoms that most adults experience after two or three days of fluids deprivation.

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