AI-generated Psych-rock band The Velvet Sundown didn’t exist two weeks ago, but today they boast over half a million listeners on Spotify and are getting to put out their third album.

The Velvet Sundown is either the hardest-working and most inspired rock group ever, or they are simply playing by different rules. The psych-rock band appeared out of nowhere two weeks ago, but managed to put out to albums and has already announced that the third will be released on Spotify soon. They already boast a respectable 500,000 monthly listeners on the popular music streaming platform and show no signs of slowing down. But the overnight success and record-breaking album release schedule drew attention to the band this week, with many accusing The Velvet Sundown of being an AI-generated gimmick. And, truth be told, all the signs point to that being the case.

Italian police recently discovered two siblings, ages 6 and 9, raised on an isolated farm in Piedmont by their virus-obsessed father.

During the flood that affected the Italian province of Piedmont in April, local carabinieri visited an isolated farm in the foothills of Lauriano, a small comune near Turin. They were there to issue a temporary eviction notice for the safety of the residents, but what they found shocked them – a 9-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl in diapers, both unable to speak, read, or write, who didn’t show up in any local registers. Their Dutch parents, a metal sculptor and a stay-at-home mom, claimed that they were home-schooled and otherwise had everything they needed, from food to toys and books, but the children were ‘ghosts’ who didn’t show up in any Italian records and seemed completely cut off from the outside world.

A 33-year-old Chinese man who showed up at the emergency room with severe abdominal pain turned out to have a foot-long live eel in his abdominal cavity.

Yesterday, Chinese newspaper Huaihua Daily reported the unusual case of a Hunan man who showed up at the First Affiliated Hospital of Hunan Medical University with a pale face, sweating profusely, and complaining of stomach pain. A CT scan of the man’s abdomen showed a foreign object that seemed to have pierced his stomach and ended up in his abdominal cavity. The man’s abdomen was already as hard as a board, and fearing a potentially fatal peritonitis, doctors decided to perform laparoscopic emergency surgery. While exploring the man’s abdomen, they were shocked to discover a live eel swimming among his organs.

An 8-year-old boy in Thailand’s Uttaradit Province, who had been neglected for years by his drug-addicted mother, spent most of his time with dogs and started communicating by barking.

Paveena Hongsakul of the Foundation for Children and Women learned about an 8-year-old boy in a drug-infested’ red zone of Uttaradit Province who had been neglected by his mother and older brother for so long that he started behaving like the dogs he spent most of his tie with. The disturbing case had been pitched to her by a school principal in Lap Lae district who claimed that the boy’s mother had brought him to school once only to collect benefits, but had never enrolled him. The child had not been in kindergarten either and had been emotionally abandoned by his mother and brother. He had found the love and attention he craved from a pack of dogs, and instead of talking like a human, he began to bark like them.

Indian police recently reported the interesting case of  Nisha, a young woman who filed a complaint against her husband, claiming that his asking her to spend less time on social media had caused her to lose followers.

The bizarre marital dispute began when the woman’s husband, identified only as Vijendra, suggested that she should spend less time on social media and more time doing house chores. The 30-year-old woman later told police that, up to that point, she and Vijendra had lived in relative harmony in their home in Noida, India’s Uttar Pradesh state, but his demands ruined her social media presence. Nisha would post at least two reels on her Instagram every day, but her husband’s demands made that impossible, and when she lost two followers in a single day, Nisha threw in the towel. She left the marital home, moved back in with her parents in another village, and filed a complaint against her husband.

Sergey Torop, a Russian religious cult leader who claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, was recently convicted to 12 years in prison for causing physical and psychological harm to his followers.

A former traffic cop, Torop gained a huge religious following in the early 1991, taking advantage of the void caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union. He called himself Vissarion and claimed to be Jesus reincarnated. We first wrote about the Siberian Jesus in 2009, when he started making news headlines outside of Russia for claiming to be a reincarnation of the Son of God and traveling to other countries to convert people. Even back then, he faced accusations of fraud, but denied any wrongdoing, claiming that his church made no money whatsoever. In 2020, Vissarion was finally arrested and charged with using psychological manipulation to control and exploit his followers for labor and money. He was recently sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Italian mechanic and YouTuber Andrea Marazzi recently made international news headlines for turning a 1993 Fiat Panda into the world’s “skinniest” drivable car.

The so-called Flat Fiat looks like something made with AI, but it’s the very real creation of a young car mechanic who wanted to build the world’s narrowest drivable car. Although it retains most of the parts of the 1993 Fiat Panda, Andrea Marazzi’s special model is only 50 centimeters wide, enough space for just a driver, and a single headlight to help the driver see at night. Marazzi spent 12 months hand-building the Flat Fiat using ‘99 percent of the original parts’ of the 1993 Fiat Panda it is based on, even retaining the four wheels, despite its’ ultra-skinny frame.

Central India’s Madhya Pradesh Government recently suspended seven engineers for the faulty design of a 200 million rupee ($2.3 million)bridge with a 90-degree turn.

The new Rail Over Bridge in Bhopal was announced 10 years ago and cost the state of Madhya Pradesh over 200 million rupees to complete. It was supposed to improve connectivity between Mahamai Ka Bagh, Pushpa Nagar, and the station area with New Bhopal, but all it has managed to do so far is spark controversy over a major blunder in its design – a nearly 90-degree turn built into the bridge. Photos of the questionable feature recently went viral on Indian social media, raising concerns over safety and how engineers could have overlooked such a critical error.

Japanese tech company H2L has created a capsule-like device that allows anyone to remotely control a robotic avatar just like in James Cameron’s namesake blockbuster.

Imagine sitting comfortably in one of those state-of-the-art massage chairs and being able to perform most of your daily house chores by remotely controlling a robotic avatar. it sounds like sci-fi, but according to Japanese company H2L Inc., it’s a much more realistic concept than most of us realize. Designed to be used in combination with a chair or bed, H2L’s so-called ‘Capsule Interface’ is equipped with a muscle displacement sensor, speaker, and display that allow the user to transmit bodily sensory information to a robot and use it to perform a variety of tasks. For example, by simply moving your feet slightly, the robot will walk; similarly, by simply moving your hands slightly, the robot will lift or push objects for you.

A Thai woman who accidentally swallowed a fish bone, which got stuck in her throat, was shocked to see it eventually pierce her neck after she failed to remove it.

On June 17, Facebook user Suriyan Buppa-art posted a couple of shocking photos allegedly showing his wife’s neck with a sharp, white needle piercing the skin from underneath. The Thai man later told news outlets that his post was meant as a cautionary tale for people who enjoyed eating fish but neglected to make sure it was bone-free. Apparently, his wife was enjoying a fish soup when she accidentally swallowed a fish bone and felt a sharp pain in her neck. She tried dislodging the bone using folk remedies like eating rice and bread crust, but nothing worked, so she went to the hospital, where an X-ray exam didn’t reveal any foreign objects.

In Dagestan and other republics of Russia’s North Caucasus Federal District, lip fillers are gaining popularity among men, sparking controversy.

Dagestan and the other predominantly Muslim North Caucasus republics are famous for their bearded, manly-looking men, but a new beauty trend is slowly chipping away at the region’s manly reputation. According to Russian media, North Caucasus men are increasingly turning to cosmetologists for lip augmentation procedures like fillers. Such behavior is still heavily frowned upon, so cosmetologists perform them during the night, when the chance of being caught are lower, and charge up to 20,000 Russian rubles ($255), compared to the standard 2,000 ($25) – 3,000 ($38), to keep the identities of their clients secret.

A 22-year-old Czech man and his parents posed as dentistry professionals and performed dozens of root canals and tooth fillings with the help of online tutorials.

Dental procedures can get really expensive, so finding a good deal is sometimes too good to pass up, especially when you’re in a lot of pain and low on funds, but cheap dental work can sometimes be too good to be true. Take, for example, the story of a family in Havlickuv Brod, a town about 100 kilometers southeast of Prague, in the Czech Republic, who posed as dentistry professionals for two years, performing cheap procedures in an unauthorized clinic, with no medical training and only online tutorials for guidance. They performed tooth extractions, local anesthesia, root canals, and tooth fillings on dozens of patients until they were finally discovered by police earlier this year.

Scientists at a robotics laboratory at the National University of Defence Technology (NUDT) in central China’s Hunan province recently unveiled a tiny insect-like drone suitable for surveillance and reconnaissance missions.

Revealed to the general public on CCTV 7 (China Central Television’s military channel), the tiny drone featured flapping wings and hair-thin legs, making it almost indistinguishable from real insects. They have the potential to revolutionise various industries and applications thanks to their tiny size, which allows them to access virtually any space and blend into all sorts of environments undetected. Although marketed primarily as a perfect candidate for military reconnaissance missions, many believe that it could be used by the Chinese government for surveillance purposes.

The Chinese City of Chongqing recently set a new Guinness World Record by staging a massive light show with no less than 11,787 drones.

China has become famous for its large-scale drone light show, but “Charming Chongqing”, an event hosted by the city of Chongqing, set a new standard for grand drone light shows and set a new Guinness World Record in the process. It is estimated that more than 100,000 people showed up in downtown Chongqing to watch the world’s largest drone light show on the night of June 17, and they were not disappointed. No less than 11,787 small drones illuminated the night sky, coordinating to form various shapes and written messages that energized the crowd.

A Texas man recently made the shocking discovery that he had somehow become married to the woman he had just broken up with, without his consent.

Imagine breaking up with someone only to find out the next day that you are legally married to them, even though you never even attended a marriage ceremony. This is the bizarre experience of a Texas man who claims he was married to his ex-fiancée without his knowledge. The 42-year-old man, whose identity has not been revealed, admitted to having been in a committed relationship with 36-year-old Kristin Marie Spearman and visiting the Wayne County clerk’s office to get a marriage license. However, the pair never made it to the altar. They got into an argument, and the man told Spearman that he didn’t want to be in a relationship with her, but his ex-fiancée had other plans…