Do companies need a strong leader to make it in today’s highly competitive environment? Many would say “yes, definitely”, but the employees of one Swedish software consultancy company would tell them otherwise. They don’t have a CEO. Nobody tells anyone what to do, instead all the 40 employees have meetings and decide together.

Crisp, the software consultancy firm that has become world famous for not having a boss, has in fact gone through a number of organisational structures, including the classic formula of having a single person running things. Hoping to get its employees more involved, it moved on to changing its chief executive officer annually, but ultimately, the 40-strong staff decided there was actually no need for a single leader, so they scrapped the position altogether.

“We said, ‘what if we had nobody as our next CEO – what would that look like?’ And then we went through an exercise and listed down the things that the CEO does,” said Yassal Sundman, a developer at Crisp. He and his colleagues quickly realized that many of the CEO’s responsibilities overlapped with their own, with the few roles that didn’t easily shareable among other employees. SO they decided to give the boss-less experiment a try.

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Zhao Yongjiu, a 56-year-old street cleaner from Shenyang, China, recently won the internet after it was revealed that over the last three decades he has helped fund the education of 37 impoverished children by donating most of his monthly salary.

Every day, the kindhearted sanitation worker leaves his home in Shenyang, China’s Liaoning Province, at 4:30 in the morning and returns at 9 p.m.. He earns a monthly salary of 2,400 yuan ($350), barely enough to make a decent living, but he somehow manages to live on way less, donating the rest to poor kids, so they can afford to go to school and get a proper education. He has been doing this for the last three decades and doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon. Zhao estimates that during that time he has donated around 170,000 yuan ($24,750), and put 37 disadvantaged kids through school.

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Open relationships are not that uncommon nowadays, but they usually imply that both partners are allowed to see other people. That’s not the case of Adam Gillet and Beatrice Gibbs, from Milton Keynes, Britain. 27-year-old Adam has agreed to let his 22-year-old girlfriend sleep with other men, for fear that he would otherwise lose her. However, Beatrice is not ok with him seeing other women.

Adam, a warehouse worker, and Beatrice, who works as a makeup artist, met in 2014, on a pub crawl. They had a one night stand, but didn’t officially become a couple until April 2015. However, their romantic relationship appeared to be short-lived,as Beatrice, who wasn’t ready to commit to just one man full-time, decided to end it after just one month. Adam was devastated, but upon hearing that she loved him, but didn’t think she could resist other men, he did what any other men in his shoes would have done – he agreed to let Beatrice have her one nigh-stands, as long as she gave their relationship another chance. They’ve been together ever since.

Beatrice is free to sleep with whoever she wants, whenever she wants, as long as she’s honest with Adam about it. He doesn’t have the same privileges, though, as his girlfriend claims that she couldn’t handle the thought of him being with another woman. Luckily, she apparently has nothing to worry about, as Adam insists he’s not interested in chasing other women.

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The life of one garden snail may not mean very much in the grand scheme of things, but for one Israeli woman who accidentally stepped on one, cracking its brittle shell, it was enough to warrant a visit to the local vet clinic.

It’s quite in rainy in Tel Aviv this time of year, and moisture-loving garden snails are very active. They sometimes venture outside their natural habitat, and, unfortunately, some of them get stepped on by careless humans. Most of the time the snail get squashed, but, in the most fortunate cases, only their shells get damaged. If they don’t suffer major injuries to their bodies, snails will usually fix their mobile homes by drawing in calcium, but one lady in the Israeli capital didn’t want to leave anything to chance after accidentally stepping on a slow-crawling snail.

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Labs To Go, a paternity testing laboratory in Virginia Beach, has come under fire for its use of a couple of controversial billboards that they claim were just intended to be funny. People didn’t see them that way, though, and it’s easy to see why.

The billboard that got the most attention in the media is located off Armistead Ave. near Downtown Hampton, and shows a male U.S. soldier standing next to a smiling postman, with the catchphrase “Who’s the Daddy” taking up most of the advertising space. While the fact that they chose an African-American man as the postman and a Caucasian soldier makes the joke extremely obvious, that didn’t prevent folks from expressing their disapproval of the advert.

The second Labs To Go Billboard is on display in Norfolk, and shows a blonde woman with a Pinocchio-like nose next to the catchphrase “Is the Mother a Liar?” and phone number of the paternity testing lab. This one didn’t sit too well with the local community either.

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Designed to help frequent flyers bypass airport baggage queues, reduce baggage fees and virtually eliminate the risk of lost luggage, this modular Airport Jacket features 14 pockets and two detachable “pocket panels” that fit around 15 kilograms of luggage.

“With airlines beginning to charge for overhead carry-on baggage as well as severely restricting baggage allowances for the low fare economy traveler, my partner and I have designed a modular jacket that allows you to wear your laptop, tablet, two pairs of shoes, a pair of jeans, five t-shirts, a jumper and an SLR camera,” designer Claire Murphy explains. “It totals 14 deep pockets, including eight pockets at hip length, 11 pockets at three-quarter length and 14 pockets at full length. It includes two detachable pocket panels, and a carry-on size duffle bag.”

Claire and Benke Murphy came up with the idea for the Airport Jacket while traveling home with their newborn child. They had so much extra carry-on luggage, because of the baby, that the airline tried to charge them $140 for it, more than the cost of their tickets. So they had to clothes, gadget chargers, diapers and toys into their pockets, until they were just over the weight limit. They dodged the tax, but everything was sticking out of their pockets and it was a pretty uncomfortable plane ride. That’s when they decided that there was a massive need for a solution to this problem, and the idea for the Airport Jacket was born.

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It’s hard to imagine why anyone would voluntarily infect themselves with one of the deadliest viruses in human existence, but for “Los Frikis” – a Cuban punk community living under the regime of Fidel Castro during the 80s and 90s – injecting themselves with HIV-infected syringes was the easiest way to escape persecution and police harassment.

Los Frikis, the name than became synonymous with punks, metalheads and pretty much anyone who didn’t fit in with mainstream Cuban society, came together during the late 1980’s. Their music, dressing style and culture were influenced by that of similar communities in the United States and other European countries, something that didn’t sit well with Fidel Castro’s communist regime. Most of the bands also sang in English, which only made things worse for Frikis in general. Although the language was purely an aesthetic choice, speaking English in those days was considered a huge no-no.

Breaking social norms was a risky affair in 1980s Cuba, and the Frikis paid a high price for it. Many of them were rejected by their families, harassed, arrested and forced to do manual labor for their “crimes”. Los Frikis would meet in safehouses located in run-down areas, but other than that they didn’t have many places where they felt accepted. Tired of the constant persecution, many of them  took up a form of protest that can only be described as extreme – infecting themselves with HIV by injecting the blood of their sick friends into their veins.

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The authors of a Class IV textbook in India recently came under fire, after it was revealed that in a lesson on the importance of breathing they were literally encouraging the kids to do an experiment involving suffocating a cat.

It sounds hard to believe that a school textbook for environmental studies could teach children as young as 9 years old to kill an animal as an experiment, but it’s sadly true. Twitter user Lola Kuttiamma shared photos of the book passages concerning the absurd experiment, and people understandably were outraged about it. “Living things breathe”, the textbook explains. “No living thing can live without air for more than a few minutes. “You can do an experiment. Take two wooden boxes. Make holes on lid of one box. Put a small kitten in each box. Close the Boxes. After some time open the boxes. What do you see? The kitten in the box with no holes has died.”

Wow, is that educational or what? And they’re not even suggesting using adult cats, but cute little kittens. Not that grown cats would have made it any more acceptable, but kittens just make it sound even crueler. And if you thought things couldn’t possibly get worse, you were wrong. The textbook, entitled “Our Green World: Environment Studies”, also features a couple of pictograms, with one kitten alive and well in the box with holes in it, and the other, well, dead.

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The KunKun, Japanese for “sniff sniff”, is a bizarre device developed by Japanese corporation Konika Minolta that detects bodily odors like smelly feet or underarm sweat and notifies the user about them via a smartphone app.

So, yeah, the days of smelling your own armpits when nobody’s watching to see if they stink are over, thanks to modern technology. Now you can just wear the KunKun everywhere you go and find out when you’re starting to stink just by checking your phone. It’s small enough to fit in a coat pocket, so no one will ever know you’re carrying it, and features sensors that pick up specific chemicals associated with three types of bodily odors. It can detect ammonia and isovaleric acid, chemicals known to produce that nasty sweaty locker-room smell, but also 2-nonenal, which is associated with old age and diacetyl, a controversial organic compound that makes yo smell like “rancid cooking oil”.

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Three years ago, Brian Sullivan and his wife Starla lived in a rented apartment that cost them $1,500 a month plus utilities. At one point they decided it wasn’t worth it anymore, so they bought an old school bus and turned into a comfy home for their big family.

It was in March 2014 that 29-year-old Brian and his wife Starla, 26,  of Renton, Washington, got tired of wasting so much money on rent. The apartment was over an hour away from Brian’s workplace, and he had to work overtime just so they could afford the rent. Plus, they wanted to be homeowners and spent a lot of time watching YouTube videos of people building their own tiny houses, or converting all kinds of things into comfortable living spaces. It was one of these videos that convinced them to take a leap of faith, so in April 2014, they bought a disused school bus for $2,800, and spent another $30,000 turning it into a home for their three kids.

“The apartment was about an hour away from Brian’s work and the commute was awful,” Starla says. “He would work overtime trying to pay the rent, then he would sit in a car for three hours and we would never see him, so we decided to make a change. We pay a third of the cost now and we have money to pay off debts and student loans!”

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Luciano Baietti, a retired school headmaster from the town of Velletri, in Italy, holds the Guinness record for the most university degrees. The 70-year-old currently has 15 bachelors or masters degrees from various universities across Italy, and is getting ready to get his 16th.

Getting more than one college degree is not exactly unheard of, but 15 is apparently quite impressive, since it’s only been done by one man. Although he spends his days working around his house and garden, like most people his age, at night, Luciano Baretti turns into a student again. Every morning, at 3 a.m., as most of the world is sleeping, he wakes up, takes out his books and studies by the light of his desk lamp. He claims that studying helps keep his mind active and that every degree he has obtained has helped broaden his knowledge of the world around him. Plus, getting mentioned in the record books is a nice perk too.

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Jane Park was only 17 years old when she won the £1 million ($1.6 million) Euromillions jackpot, four years ago. She was ecstatic at the time, but Park has recently revealed that she plans to sue the lottery for negligence. She claims that winning so much money at a young age has ruined her life, and argues that argues that people under 18 should not be allowed to play the lottery.

Ms. Park was working as an admin temp, earning $13 an hour, when she won the lottery. She now owns two properties, drives a Range Rover and can afford all the designer clothes and handbag she used to only dream of. But that doesn’t mean she’s happy. If anything, splurging on these material things sometimes just makes it worse, to the point where she feels that her life has no real meaning. It’s definitely not how she pictured her life when she went public as Britain’s youngest Euromillions lottery winner, four years ago.

“At times it feels like winning the lottery has ruined my life. I thought it would make it 10 times better but it’s made it 10 times worse. I wish I had no money most days. I say to myself, ‘My life would be so much easier if I hadn’t won’,” Jane said. “People look at me and think, ‘I wish I had her lifestyle, I wish I had her money.’ But they don’t realize the extent of my stress. I have material things but apart from that my life is empty. What is my purpose in life?”

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For most of us, swinging 360 degrees around the spindle of a swing set is a distant childhood dream, but for a group of adrenaline seekers in Estonia, it’s a passion they never grew out of. Not only do they still love defying gravity, but they actually created a competitive sport around their favorite pastime. That sport is known as “kiiiking”.

Swings are deeply embedded in Estonian culture, and you can still find various types of swings in villages and towns all around the country. They are used by children and adults alike, either for simple fun, or as a way for communities to bond during celebrations. So maybe it doesn’t come as a big surprise that Estonia has an extreme sport based on swinging. Some people see it as dull, others as pointless, but to those who practice it, kiiking is the coolest thing in the world.

As you might remember, swinging around the spindle of some playground swings was possible, but at the same time dangerous. From simple bruises to broken bones and concussions, there were a lot of things that could go wrong during such an attempt, which is why in 1993, an Estonian man by the name of Ado Kosk created a pair of wooden swings designed specifically for going all the way around the spindle. They were rudimentary contraptions made up of simple levers with a pair of wooden rods attached to a flat seat on one end and the rotating spindle on the other. Nobody knew it at the time, but that was when kiiking was born.

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President Donald Trump has been called many things ever since he announced his candidacy for President of the United States, and according to one California woman, you can add one more thing to the list – homewrecker. She claims to have left her husband after feeling betrayed by his decision to support Trump during the Presidential elections.

73-year-old Gayle McCormick, a retired prison guard from California who describes herself as a “Democrat leaning toward socialist”, says that she always knew that her husband of 22 years leaned right politically, but she still felt “betrayed” when he casually mentioned that he was going to vote for Donald Trump, during lunch with some friends. She recently described the revelation as a “deal breaker” that made her re-evaluate her marriage after over two decades. It turns out that the man’s support for Donald Trump was more than she could put up with, so she left him.

“It totally undid me that he could vote for Trump,” McCormick said. “I felt like I had been fooling myself, It opened up areas between us I had not faced before. I realized how far I had gone in my life to accept things I would have never accepted when I was younger.”

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A Chinese farmer with only three years of school under his belt has dedicated the last 16 years of his life to teaching himself law, hoping to bring down a state-owned chemical company that has been polluting his village and affecting his livelihood.

Wang Enlin, from Yushutun village, in China’s Heilongjiang Province, will never forget that day in 2001, when his village and the surrounding farmland were flooded with toxic waste. It was the eve of the Lunar New Year, and Wang and his neighbors were playing cards and making dumplings, when they notice that the house they were in was being flooded with waste water from the nearby Qihua Group, a state-owned enterprise. That same year, Mr Wang wrote a letter to the Land Resources Bureau of Qiqihar, complaining about the pollution, but during his dealings with officials, he was repeatedly asked to provide evidence that his village and the land he and his neighbors survived off of had indeed been contaminated.

“I knew I was in the right, but I did not know what law the other party had broken or whether or not there was evidence,” the 60-something farmer recently told reporters. The easiest thing to do would have been to hire a lawyer, but Wang and his neighbors could barely afford to put food on the table, so professional legal council was definitely not an option. But Wang Enlin would not give up so easily, and even though he had only attended school until Third Grade, he decided to study law himself and find out what kind of evidence he needed to collect.

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