A 12-year-old by from Nanning, China recently won first prize at a regional science and innovation contest for creating an automatic clothes drying rack that retracts whenever it detects rain and extends again when the sky clears. The ingenious contraption impressed a lot of people, but it was the inspiration behind it that really got people talking.

Lu Jiezhen, a sixth-grade student at North-East Women’s Education Center in, Nanning, China’s Guangdong Province, came up with the idea for the automatic rain-detecting drying rack after being yelled at by his mother. One day, she had to leave the house and asked him to look after the clothes she had hung out to dry, reminding him that he was to take them inside in case it started to rain. Needless to say, the 12-year-old started playing around the house and forgot to pick up the clothes when the rain inevitably came. When his mother returned, she found the clothes soaking wet, and scolded him for disobeying her. But instead of finding excuses, Lu started thinking about a solution that would make his forgetfulness irrelevant in the future.

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A family in Granada, Spain was shocked to discover that the constant buzzing coming from behind their bedroom wall turned out to be a massive bee colony numbering over 80,000 honey bees.

Spanish social media has been buzzing with the news of a couple in Pinos Puente, Granada, who recently asked a local beekeeper to investigate the increasingly loud buzz sound coming from behind their bedroom wall. They had been hearing it for a while and had long come to the conclusion that it must be caused by bees, but it wasn’t until the buzzing got so loud that they couldn’t sleep at night that they decided to get professional help. Beekeeper Sergio Guerrero had helped remove bee colonies from their properties before, but what he found behind the wall of this particular house left him speechless – a hive of over 80,000 bees and honey combs over a meter long.

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It’s crazy what people these days will do for a bit of attention and some social media followers. Julia Słońska, a young model and online influencer with over 6,000 followers on Instagram, was widely criticized after a viral video shot by a friend showed her smashing the nose of a 200-year-old statue with a hammer.

Słońska has been forced to issue a grovelling apology after a video of her smashing the nose of a post-war statue in Warsaw received massive criticism online. Posted as a story by fellow Instagram user @advvx, the shocking video shows the young model holding a hammer and asking the person behind the camera if they are filming before proceeding to smash the statue’s nose to smithereens. The pair then continue to laugh as they walk away leaving the now-noseless statue to be discovered by local authorities. Although Słońska has yet to reveal the motivation behind this act of vandalism, it is believed to have been a stunt meant to attract social media followers.

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‘Beautiful’ is probably not the first word most people would use to describe mold, but to an online community in Russia, the fungi commonly associated with death and decay truly is a thing of beauty, and they have the photos to prove it.

‘Mom, I Have Grown Mold’ is a growing community of mold enthusiasts who love uploading their own photos of mold and commenting on those uploaded by other members. The public group was created back in 2015 on popular Russian social network VKontakte, and has grown to over 50,000 members, many of which constantly post intriguing photos of mold cultured they grow in their own homes. Some of them are actually quite intriguing, if you can get past your disgust and really appreciate the beauty behind it.

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A 33-year-old law-school graduate from London decided to start her own her own retail company selling vintage clothes online after struggling to find a job because of her good looks.

Russian-born Irina Kova claims that being attractive has made it harder for her to get a job in London, as women simply don’t trust her or find her intimidating, and men don’t take her seriously. Kova, who used to work in business development for important clients, believes her good looks ruined her career and made it harder to find another serious job, despite having a law-degree and an impressive CV.

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A Florida man who was spotted standing through his sunroof while driving on a busy expressway told police that he would rather get locked up than go home to his wife.

70-year-old Leonard Olsen was detained last week after being spotted by an off-duty policeman while standing through the sunroof of his car with his arms spread out. The witness, who actually managed to film the bizarre stunt, said that at one point Olsen was just sitting on his sunroof while the car was still moving. After being stopped by troopers alerted by the off-duty officer, Olen initially denied that he had ever stood out the sunroof while driving, saying that he didn’t “know about that”. However, after being told that someone had seen and recorded him doing just that, the man changed his story, telling the troopers that he planned to turn himself in because he didn’t want to go back to his wife.

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A Spanish inmate recently invoked the principle of religious freedom in an attempt to convince the prison warden to serve him a glass of wine with every meal so he could worship his chosen deity.

In a letter addressed to the director of Zaballa prison, in Spain’s Basque Country, the unnamed prisoner declares himself a disciple of Bachus, the Roman god of wine, and asks that he be provided with a glass of wine for every meal, so he can properly worship his deity.

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A young dog breeder in eastern China was recently arrested and sentenced to ten days in a detention center after giving two of his canines controversial names that refer to Chinese government and civil service workers.

The 30-year-old man, surnamed Ban, was summoned by police on Monday, after posting on Chinese social network WeChat that he had named two of his dogs Chengguan and Xieguan. The first refers to officials tasked with tackling low-level crime, while the second is a name used to describe informal community workers, such as traffic assistants. Ban said that he didn’t know using the two words as names for his dogs was illegal, and that he had done it as a joke, but police failed to see the humor and launched an investigation after the man’s post went viral online.

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British insurance company Endsleigh Insurance Services recently launched its “Spoiler Cover” package, which allows Game of Thrones fans to receive financial compensation for plotlines ruined by friends, family or social media.

With the HBO series’ grand finale expected to air in the UK at 9pm on Monday 20 May, a full 19 hours after the final episode airs in the United States, the chances of plot leaks ruining fans’ viewing experience are pretty high. One insurance company came up with the idea of appeasing disgruntled fans by offering them financial compensation up to the sum of £100 per person if they accidentally fall victim to spoilers or unwanted plot reveals.

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A young Filipino woman working as a maid for a wealthy family in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was reportedly tied to a tree by her employers as punishment for leaving a valuable piece of furniture in the sun.

26-year-old Lovely Acosta Baruelo is said to have angered her Saudi employers by leaving a piece of furniture outside, where it risked being damaged by the sun. As punishment, the family decided to make her feel the effects of staying in the scorching sun for too long, by tying her to a tree in their opulent Riyadh mansion. Photos of the woman tightly bound to the tree with a rope, as other servants carry on with their work around her unable to help, were allegedly taken by another Filipino worker who later shared them online, begging authorities to help the victim of the abuse.

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It’s been over a month since Nicole and Pascal Vermeulen, a middle-aged couple from Lignières, France, have had to sleep in fear of someone simply walking into their home at night. That’s because they don’t have a front door anymore, or windows for that matter, after the house owner removed them as punishment for not receiving the rent.

Three years ago, when the Vermeulen family found a 110 square-meter house for rent in the village of Lignières, for €500 a month, they thought they were getting a good deal, but things started going south soon after they moved in. The building’s septic tank got clogged years ago, which rendered the toilet and shower virtually unusable. The tenants have had to deal with human waste coming up through the toilet and the shower drain on more than one occasion, and the bathroom walls are constantly covered with mold. Also their garage always smells like a sewer. Despite their repeated pleas to the owner of the apartment to get the septic tank fixed, and the home being declared insanitary by the CAF (Direction of Family Allocations), the owner simply disregarded the problems.

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A 63-year-old man recently made news headlines in China for reportedly throwing up a tumor after a drinking session, then getting scared and swallowing it back.

The unnamed man from Hunchun County, in China’s Hubei Province, had allegedly been feeling discomfort in his throat for some time, but since it didn’t hinder his breathing or swallowing too much, he never sought medical attention. However, last week, after having one too many drinks, the man started feeling nauseous. That was hardly unusual after a long drinking session, only this time, as he was getting ready to throw up, the 63-year-old felt a sharp pain in his lower throat followed by the disturbing presence of a large piece of meat in his mouth. Strangely enough, the fleshy mass seemed to be attached to something, so the drunk man couldn’t just cough it out, so he did the next best thing –  he chugged a glass of water and swallowed it back.

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Plougastel, a small village in France’s Brittany region, is offering a prize of €2,000 ($2,250) to whoever can decipher a 230-year-old inscription carved into a nearby rock-slab.

Discovered just a few years ago, the mysterious rock is located in a cove accessible only at low tide. It features 20 lines of writing in a “language” that so far no one has been able to crack, two years  – 1786 and 1787 – as well as carved images of a ship with sails and rudder, and a sacred heart. Local academics have been struggling to decipher the centuries-old images for some time now, but so far all they’ve come up with is theories. Some believe that the writing may be in old Breton or Basque, while others think that whoever carved it into the rock slab may have been semi-illiterate.

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Last weekend, a series of photos that seemed to show a very young boy getting married to an adult woman went viral on Mexican social media. There was speculation of arranged marriage and child trafficking, but the true story turned out to be more tragic, and at the same time heartwarming, than everyone thought.

Mexican media recently reported that the protagonists of the viral photos did indeed get married during a two-day celebration in their native town of Xaltianguis, Acapulco. However, although the groom looks like a primary school student, he is actually a 19-year-old man named Jonathan who suffers from a rare disorder that stems his growth and makes him look much younger than his years. Despite his condition, Jonathan managed to find the love, and last weekend he and his fiancee tied the knot in front of family and friends.

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A Pittsburgh woman who had noticed signs of strange activity in her house was shocked to discover that her ex boyfriend, who she had a restraining order against, had been living in her attic for at least three weeks.

The woman, whose name was not disclosed by the press for security reasons, had noticed small things awry in her house for weeks. She was afraid it was her ex-boyfriend, Cary Cocuzzi, but ultimately decided to ignore her fears, thinking she was just being paranoid. On one occasion she noticed the toilet seat left up, which was unusual because she only shared the house with her daughters, and another time she found a blanket on the floor in the basement. She thought about calling the police, but then she reconsidered, thinking she couldn’t just tell them “There’s a blanket in my basement”.

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