Anand Dhawaj Negi, a retired bureaucrat turned desert farmer, spent over two decades of his life turning the cold wastes of northern India’s Himachal Pradesh into a vibrant oasis.

In 1977, the Indian Government kickstarted an ambitious program to mitigate the adverse effects of desertification in the Asian country’s cold and hot deserts. A. D. Negi  worked in the financial department in charge of the Desert Development Program and saw millions of dollars go down the drain with no real results to show for it. Whenever he asked scientists and officials involved in the program why there was no real progress, the answer would always be that they lacked the technology to develop any type of sustainable crops in the inhospitable environment that is the desert. A farmer’s son himself, Negi grew tired of excuses and took a leave of absence in 1999 to take a crack at it himself. By 2003, he had already permanently retired from his job to concentrate all of his energy on his growing desert oasis.

A native of Sunam village in Kinnaur, Negi took it upon himself to turn a barren patch of land in the cold desert of Himachal Pradesh into a green oasis just to show everyone, particularly the struggling farmers in the area that it could be done. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do in the world, but the former bureaucrat knew what he was getting into and had the ambition and patience to see it through.

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A 75-year-old retired attorney from Chicago recently became the oldest American to ever conquest Everest, the world’s tallest mountain top. The craziest thing is that he had only started mountaineering 7 years prior.

Arthur Muir, a married father of three and grandfather of six, had been fascinated with mountain climbing ever since his father gave him a book about the Himalayas when he was a child, and that fascination only grew when  Barry Bishop, a legendary climber and conqueror of Everest, visited his high-school in 1964. However, he never followed his dream of picking up mountaineering until a friend convinced him to do so, seven years ago, but once he did, he couldn’t stop.

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In what can probably described as the weirdest wedding ceremony of 2021, so far, an Indian man ended up marrying the bride’s sister, after his betrothed succumbed to a heart attack during the wedding.

The bizarre incident took place last week, in Uttar Pradesh’s Etawah district. The young bride, Surabhi, suddenly fell unconscious right next to the groom, Manjesh Kumar, right before the ‘pheras’ ceremony, an important ritual in Hindu weddings. The woman reportedly said that she felt unwell and then collapsed. An ambulance was called, but all paramedics could do was confirm the young woman’s death. One would assume that the tragic event would result in a cancelled wedding, but that was not the case here…

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A Thai doctor recently took to Facebook to share photos of a rather unusual patient – a cockroach that someone spotted on the side of the road after being stepped on.

Last week, Thanu Limpapattanawanich, a veterinarian from Krathum Baen, in Thailand, found himself having to save the life of a very special patient. A person came in one day with an injured cockroach that they had witnessed being accidentally stepped on by someone else. Unable to let the insect die on the side of the road, the person took it in the palm of their hand and brought it to the Sai Rak Animal Hospital. Instead of laughing at the person who brought in the bug, Dr. Limpapattanawanich took the case and treated the cockroach for free.

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A bank employee in India, who was recovering from the coronavirus disease wreaking havoc through his country, was allegedly denied leave and forced to come in to work while hooked up to an oxygen tank.

Arvind Kumar works as a manager at a Bokaro branch of Punjab National Bank, in the state of Jharkhand, recently showed up at his workplace with an oxygen mask over his face and dragging an oxygen tube. In a video that has since gone viral the middle-aged man can be heard saying that he was denied leave by his seniors, so he had to come to work, even though he was still recovering from a life-threatening condition. The video of Kumar leaning on his wife and his son dragging the oxygen tube have been doing the round online for over a week, sparking controversy on social media.

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Hanging by the neck is considered dangerous, some would even call it deadly, but pensioners in China are increasingly turning to it as a form of exercise to treat back pain.

A bizarre exercising trend has become very popular among elderly fitness enthusiasts in China’s Liaoning Province over the last couple of years. Photos and videos show pensioners hanging by the neck on a special harness and either dangling in the air or swinging their bodies back and forth, and in a circular pattern. They attach these special neck hanging harnesses to trees in parks, or to metal bars at outdoor exercising venues, and they swear that the unusual exercises do wonders for their back problems.

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A tech-savvy Japanese youtuber recently unveiled a special grill that requires users to actually burn some calories to power up the device and cook the meat.

Japanese youtuber Bomb_tamio specializes in wacky inventions that put a smile on viewers faces, but his latest creations actually intrigued a lot of people, especially those looking for creative ways to lose weight. In a video posted last month, the young inventor can be seen preparing to cook strips of bacon on an electric grill, only instead of turning it on via its knob, he starts running in place with one foot over a yellow pad. It’s this fast movement that powers the grill, so the user needs to keep moving until the meat is cooked.

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Audiophiles are known to pour lots of time and resources into their passion, but few go above and beyond to fulfill their dreams. One such individual spent over 25 years building what many consider the world’s best stereo system.

Ever since he was a teenager, Milwaukee native Ken Fritz knew that music and sound were his greatest passions. In high-school, he was already building his own advanced speakers, and, as an adult, he turned his passion into a successful business that helped him fund his greatest dream – to build the world’s ultimate stereo system. It took him over a quarter of a century to do it, but today his creation is regarded as the best sound system in the world by both professionals and fellow audiophiles.

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A Chinese man was browsing his favorite video app when he stumbled upon a recent video of his wife marrying another man in a neighboring town.

At age 35, Yin Cheng (pseudonym) is already considered an “elderly youth” in his in his home city of Bayannur, Inner Mongolia, so it’s no surprise that his family has been pushing him to find a wife. But that’s not an easy task in China nowadays, so earlier this year the man sought the help of a matchmaker, surnamed Li, who introduced him to (Nana) a woman who had reportedly already been married before. That didn’t really matter to him, and after talking to Nana over video calls a few times, he asked her to come to Bayannur so they could meet in person, and even sent her 1,000 yuan as a sign of good faith. Little did he know that he was falling for an elaborate scam…

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A young Lamborghini owner in China recently got his five minutes of online fame by trying to barbecue some skewered pork with the car’s fiery exhaust and incurring about $80,000 in repair costs.

A few days ago a group of men gathered around an orange Lamborghini sports car in an underground garage in Changsha, Hunan Province, to witness the cooking of what many have called the world’s most expensive skewered pork. Apparently, the luxury car owner and his friend decided that it would be fun to use the Lamborghini’s super hot exhaust to barbecue a small piece of meat skewered on a stick. The driver kept pressing the acceleration pedal of the parked car, while his smiling friend held the skewer. What could go wrong, right?

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Scientists and fire crews in California recently discovered a giant sequoia tree that is still smoldering and smoking, almost a year after the surrounding area was devastated by massive wildfires.

The 2020 Castle Fire, which broke out in August of last year and scorched more than 150,000 acres of land, including at least 10 sequoia groves in the region. No one knows how many of these ancient giants were destroyed by the blaze, but one thing is for sure, at least one of them is still smoldering and smoking, almost a year after. National Park Service staff made the shocking discovery earlier this month, while conducting surveys in the area to assess the damage caused by last year’s wildfire. One of them noticed plumes of smoke rising in the distance, and, using a long camera lens, tracked it down to a single sequoia.

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Police in China have recently been issuing warnings about “fake women” using realistic-looking silicone breasts prosthesis to trick men into removing their clothes during online chats and then blackmailing them with the footage.

If the last couple of years have taught us anything, it’s that you should definitely not trust anything you see online. From commercially available apps like FaceApp, to advanced deepfake and artificial intelligence, technology has gotten so good at tricking the human eye that you just can’t trust your vision anymore. But it’s not just technology, either. According to recent reports, gangs of Chinese men have been using rudimentary tools like silicone breasts and makeup to pose as women online and blackmail gullible people.

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A one-of-a-kind flower endemic to Greece is believed to emit a scent similar to that of decomposing insects in order to attract one of its main pollinators, the coffin fly.

Flowers are usually associated with sweet, pleasant smells, but truth is that not all flowers smell nice. In fact, some smell like some of the grossest thing in the world, and that’s by design, because their pollinators are actually attracted to these disgusting scents. Take Aristolochia microstoma, a small flower endemic to Greece, which deceives its main pollinator, the coffin fly, by emitting a highly unusual mix of scents that includes a compound found in dead beetles. As their name suggests, coffin flies are attracted to carrion, to the scent lures them into the flower where they are trapped long enough to deposit any pollen they carry onto the female organs.

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A Spanish teenager who started digging a hole in his backyard after an argument with his parents, six years ago, is now the proud owner of an underground cave in his own backyard.

Andres Canto was 14 when he first headed into his backyard in Alicante, Spain, with a pickaxe, following an argument with his parents. They wouldn’t let him go put into town wearing a track suit, so he decided to stay home and let off some steam by digging a hole. The thing he hadn’t planned one was enjoying digging as much as he did. Andres found that he loved coming back to his growing hole every evening, after classes, and just expanding it little by little. He eventually brought a friend to help him with the digging, and together they turned the hole into an impressive cave.

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A deeply religious man who became convinced that God would grant him a Lamborghini sports car if he fasted for 40 consecutive days and nights almost died after shunning food for a whopping 33 days.

Mark Muradzira,  a Youth Leader of the Risen Saints Church in Bindura, Zimbabwe, recently decided to put God’s generosity to the test by asking for a Lamborghini sports car. Somehow, the 27-year-old man became convinced that the Almighty would grant his wish if he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, so he isolated himself in a remote mountain area to prevent being tempted by food. The unemployed man had opted for the extreme and bizarre way of obtaining a Lamborghini because he was unemployed and was unable to spend upwards of $200,000 on a new one. However, he was determined to offer his girlfriend her dream car, and fasting was the only affordable way to do it.

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