An 8-year-old child has been dubbed “Mowgli Girl” after she was found living with monkeys in the jungle of India’s Uttar Pradesh state. The girl is believed to have been separated from society for a long time, as she can neither speak or understand any language, and gets scared at the sight of other people.

In Rudyard Kipling’s “The Jungle Book”, Mowgli was brought up by a pack of wolves, but it the case of this real-life, feminine version of the jungle boy, it was monkeys who provided the care and protection that ensured her survival. Two months ago, Suresh Yadav, a sub-inspector with the Uttar Pradesh police department, was patrolling the Motipur range of Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary, in the jungle of Bahraich, when he spotted a young girl surrounded by monkeys.

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Scientists in Germany recently turned on the “world’s largest artificial sun” a device made up of 149 Xenon short-arc lamps that can create about 10,000 times the amount of solar radiation we get on Earth. That’s enough to melt metal or fry pretty much any living thing.

Luckily, researchers don’t plan on using this powerful device, called “Synlight” to fry anyone, and have taken precautions to keep people well away from it while it’s switched on. Instead, they hope it will help them discover new, cost-effective ways of producing climate-friendly fuels like hydrogen.

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Most people let the strands of hair that fall off when their shower just go down the drain, or they throw it in the trash, but Lucy Gafford, a multimedia artist from Alabama, uses it to create detailed works of art right on her bathroom wall.

The self-proclaimed “Shower Hair Master” discovered that her wet hair made a unique, albeit bizarre art medium, three years ago, while showering. She gathered the hair that came off of her head while washing it, and spread it on the bathroom wall, as she usually did. She planned to throw it away after she was done, but this time she noticed that the strands made up a recognizable shape, so she started playing around with the mass of hair and ended up creating a squirrel.

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After receiving several complaints from loyal customers, the owner of an upscale Italian restaurant in Mooresville, North Carolina, has taken the controversial decision to ban children under the age of five. And, despite facing some backlash on social media, he claims that business has grown significantly.

Caruso’s describes itself as a “traditional, classy, intimate” restaurant but young children crying, screaming or playing on iPads at full volume and disturbing the other diners apparently didn’t fit in too well in that picture. So the owner, Pasquale Caruso, adopted a “no child under five”policy in January 2017, to ensure that his upscale eatery lives up to its reputation.

“I had several customers complain, get up and leave because children were bothering them, and the parents were doing nothing,” Caruso told the Mooresville Gazette. “It started to feel like it wasn’t Caruso’s anymore, that it was a local pizzeria instead.”

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The International Food Information Council recommends a daily caffeine intake of 300 mg, while the FDA recommends 400 mg, but just one 12-ounce cup of Black Insomnia brew contains 702 mg of caffeine, which will definitely keep you up at night and may even cause some health problems.

Black Insomnia Coffee was founded in 2016 by South African coffee lover Sean Kristafor. From the very beginning, his goal was to create the strongest coffee in the world, and he managed to do it by using the stronger Robusta variety, instead of the more aromatic Arabica. The secret to its high caffeine content is apparently in the way that the coffee beans are roasted, but Kristafor is obviously not interested in revealing the process. He only says that they can make it considerably stronger, and actually had to dial it down a bit for the commercial version, just so it was safe to consume.

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Japanese artist Yoneji Inamura spent six years of his life collecting 20,000 beetles of different varieties and using them to create a five-foot sculpture of a popular Buddhist deity.

It’s unclear how and when exactly Inamura started catching and collecting beetles. Some sources claim that it was during his days working for the local railroad, in Itakura, Japan’s Gunma Prefecture, after noticing that the rhinoceros beetle’s horn resembled the fingers of the Buddhist deity, while others say that he was helping local children collect beetles and just became fascinated with them. Living in a rural area of Japan, Inamura was always surrounded by various types of beetles, including rhinoceros beetles, winged jewel beetles, drone beetles, longhorn beetles, just to name a few, and he dedicated most of his free time to catching and adding them to his collection.

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65-year-old Orestes Estevez, a winemaker from Havana, Cuba, has come up with a very ingenious use for latex condoms. He places them over large jars of grape and fruit juice and they let him know exactly when the fermentation process is completed.

Condoms are very popular in Cuba, but not just as a contraception method. Years of international embargo and low income have forced many Cubans to make due with whatever products they had access to. Last year, we wrote about Havana’s “balloon fishermen” who use inflated condoms as cheap lures that carry their lines far into the ocean to catch expensive fish like red snapper, barracuda and tarpon without having to leave the shore. Today, we learn about a wine maker who uses them to perfect the fermentation process of his wine.

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Zheng Jiajia, a 31-year-old artificial intelligence expert from Hangzhou, China, recently made headlines after marrying 1-year-old Yingying, a “female” robot that he built himself.

Zheng graduated from Zhejiang University in 2011 with a master’s degree in artificial intelligence, and spent 3 years working for Chinese tech giant Huawei, before joining Hangzhou’s Dream Town, a base for internet and tech startups, to work on artificial intelligence. Last year, he started working on a smart humanoid robot that would end up becoming his wife.

Named Yingying, the female robot can allegedly say a few simple words, and is capable of recognizing Chinese characters and images. She weighs about 30 kilograms and is modeled according to the young engineer preferences in women.

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Inspired by Charles and Francis Darwin’s theory on plant intelligence, German artist Diana Scherer managed to successfully coerce the roots of various plants to grow in specific patterns. The results of her work are simply breathtaking.

In his book, The Power of Movements of Plants, Charles Darwin argued that while plants are not capable of moving from the place where they are rooted, their roots don’t just grow passively, but actively observe their surroundings, navigating in search of water and certain chemicals. He also refers to roots as plants’ brain-like organ, suggesting that they are actually a lot more intelligent than most people think.

Based on Darwin’s controversial “root-brain” hypothesis, Amsterdam-based artist Diana Scherer conducted an artistic experiment where she attempted to coerce plant roots to grow in intricate patterns, sometimes becoming interwoven into stunning living carpets.

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Sick of being taken for a ride by male car mechanics whenever she went to an auto repair shop, Patrice Banks became a certified mechanic herself. The ambitious woman is now educating other women on car maintenance and running an all-female car repair business in Philadelphia.

Born poor to a single mother, Patrice Banks has done very well for herself. She was the first in her family to graduate from high school and after engineering at Lehigh University, she went on to work as an engineer in a cellular analysis lab at DuPont for over a decade. It’s safe to say that she was a very ambitious and confident woman, but there was always one thing that made her feel insecure – having to take her car to a repair shop. The mechanics would either try to overcharge her, be condescending or make her wait simply because she was a woman.

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London-based Botanique artisan shop recently sparked a bit of controversy online after it was revealed that it is selling small tree branch fragments for up to £18 each.

Botanique has apparently been selling these decorative sticks for a while now, but they were brought to the attention of the media a few days ago, when BBC presenter Jeremy Vine tweeted a picture of them to his 600,000 Twitter followers. The store, located in Stoke Newington, east London, sources the sticks from a professional woodworker and sells them for £12 to £18 ($15 to $22) depending on size and shape.

Made from birch or holly, the sticks are planed and sanded at the back and have holes drilled in them for easy mounting on the wall. Some of them have small notches that can be used to hang coats on.

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If you’re looking for a way to shake off that nasty nail biting habit, this ain’t it. If anything, this prosecco-flavored nail varnish will only make it worse.

Prosecco Polish, “the world’s first edible prosecco flavored nail polish”, was created last month, by UK-based company Groupon, in celebration of Mother’s Day. It’s made with real Prosecco – a cheaper alternative to champagne – and apparently smells and tastes just like the popular Italian wine. The lick-able golden varnish not only makes your nails look pretty, but also places the flavor of prosecco literally at your fingertips to enjoy without fear of a hangover.

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One of China’s newest pop sensations, a group called Acrush, puts a new twist on the concept of “boy band”, as its five members are in fact androgynous women.

Acrush is set to release their debut music video at the end of this month, but the band is already causing a stir online with its unique concept. The group was recently showcased to the public in a “Husband Exhibition” – an event organized by social media giant Tencent to promote pop stars who appear on its online streaming site – and the group’s popularity simply skyrocketed. With no single to their name yet, the girls already have 900,000 followers on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter. That’s a pretty big deal, considering established stars like Katie Perry have around one million fans.

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