Caterpillars Don’t Have Lungs, But Somehow This One Can Scream to Keep Predators Away

Apart from the sound they make while chewing on leaves, the vast majority of caterpillars are silent creatures. However, the Nessus sphinx hawkmoth caterpillar is able to produce clicking noises that sounds a lot like static, as a self-defense mechanism, and scientists believe they discovered how.

Insects have no lungs, but some of them can be really noisy. While humans and most other vertebrates make noise by forcing air out of their bodies, insects and larvae don’t have that luxury. Some of them have adapted, rubbing, knocking or vibrating parts of their bodies to produce distinctive sounds, the kind you hear when you open a window on a quiet summer night, but the Nessus sphinx hawkmoth caterpillar doesn’t fall into that category. When threatened, it produces a strange sound that resembles a combination of cracking and spitting, by pushing air through a constriction between its two foregut chambers, even though it has no lungs.

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Artist Creates Amazing ‘Web Portraits’ Using a Single Sewing Thread

Slovenian artist Sašo Krajnc creates incredibly detailed portraits by tightly winding a single sewing thread on a circular wooden frame to create overlapping straight lines.

That’s actually the most impressive thing about Sašo Krajnc, that he’s able to create such detailed facial features, like the curvatures of the eyes and lips, using only straight lines. He starts out with a circular frame made of wood or aluminium and lined with metal nails. He then takes a long sewing thread and begins winding it around these nails creating hundreds, or even thousands of black straight lines that crisscross and overlap to emphasise the features of his subjects.

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Luxury Village in China Remains Deserted as Villagers Fight Over Who Should Own One or Two Villas

They say “no good deed goes unpunished” and one Chinese billionaire learned that the hard way after spending tens of millions of dollars on hundreds of luxury villas for all the residents in his home village, only to see them remain deserted as greedy recipients continue to argue over who should own multiple houses.

Five years ago, Chen Sheng, the founder and chairman of drinks company Tiandi No 1 Beverage Inc, committed 200 million yuan (US$31.9 million) to the construction of 258 luxury villas on a plot of land offered by authorities in the village of Guanhu, China’s Guangdong province. Each property measures 280 square meters and the three-story villas feature five bedrooms, two reception rooms, a garage and a small garden. The new village also has a small stream passing through it, several pedestrian bridges, basketball and badminton courts and even a public stage for various cultural events, but even though everything was completed last year, the place remains deserted.

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Man Raised by Wolves Is Disappointed with Life Among Humans

Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja lived among wolves for 12 years in the mountains of Spain’s Cordoba province, before being discovered by the Civil Guard at age 19 and brought back into civilization. But even now, at age 72, Pantoja still hasn’t completely adjusted to life among humans.

Born in Añora, Cordoba, in 1946, Marcos Rodríguez Pantoja lost his mother when he was only three years old, and soon after, his father abandoned him to live with another woman in a neighboring town. As a young boy, he was taken to the mountains to replace an old sheepherder and look after a heard of 300 sheep. He remembers that the old man taught him to make a fire and use various tools, but in 1954, when Marcos hadn’t even turned eight years old, the sheepherder died, living him all alone.

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Japanese Company Makes the Coolest Tweezers Ever

Tweezers have been around for thousands of years, but they’ve never really been regarded as one of the coolest tools man ever invented. Well, a Japanese company is looking to change that with its awesome Tweezers of Legend.

Having to pluck a rogue hair strand from your eyebrow or nose is not the most exciting task, but what if your tweezers looked like a legendary sword, the like of which you only see in over-the-top fantasy anime or video games? Now we’re talking, right? Well, thanks to Japanese company wāqwāq Inc., you can now battle your body hair like a fabled hero.

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Ohio Town Terrorized by Zombie-Like Raccoons

Police in Youngstown, Ohio, have received over a dozen reports of zombie-like raccoons coming out in the daytime, flashing their teeth and just falling on their backs for no apparent reason.

Youngstown has always had a raccoon population, but the furry mammals usually stayed out of people’s way, only coming out at night to search through their trash cans for food. However, last month, some of the raccoons started acting really strange. They would come out in broad daylight, sometimes walking up all the way to people’s front doors, flash their sharp teeth in a threatening manner and then fall on their back and enter a comatose-like state. Over the past three weeks, such raccoons came to be known as “zombie raccoons”.

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Woman Risks Her Life Tending to Abandoned Cattle in Fukushima Radiation Zone

A Japanese animal lover risks her life every single day by venturing into the Fukushima exclusion zone to feed a heard of 11 cows abandoned after the 2011 nuclear disaster.

The earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Fukushima in 2011 claimed the lives of over 20,000 people, and forced another 160,000 to leave everything behind and flee to safety. But while people were able to escape the threat of radiation from the damaged reactor at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, animals could not. The area was home to over 3,500 cattle which became known as the “nuclear cows of Fukushima” after being exposed to high levels of radiation. Most of them are dead now, killed by starvation or euthanized by the government, but the few surviving cows now rely on the kindness of humans brave enough to risk their lives to bring them food and water.

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Artist Faces Backlash After Killing Butterflies And Using Their Wings for a Painting Symbolizing Rebirth

A Chinese art student sparked a heated debate online after using the wings of over 500 butterflies to create a series of artworks symbolizing rebirth. While some consider her “sick” for using butterfly wings as an art medium, others think her creations qualify as original art.

Li Zheng, a fourth-year art student at Quanzhou Normal University in Fujian province, China, created a series of artworks consisting of meticulously arranged butterfly wings as part of her graduation piece. She and her colleagues were instructed by their lecturer to recreate famous artworks using different materials. Li decided she wanted to recreate some of the masterpieces of Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh, but at first, she had no idea what materials she was going to use.

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Indian Boy’s Body Can Allegedly Light Up LED Light Bulbs By Itself

A 9-year-old boy from Kerala, in India, has become a social media sensation after videos of him lighting rechargeable LED light bulbs just by touching their electrical contacts with any part of his body went viral online.

Abu Thahir, who hails from Muhamma near Alappuzha, Kerala, discovered his unusual power only recently, while returning home with his father after buying a rechargeable LED light bulb. His father, Nizar, who happens to be an electrician, told reporters that when he passed the light-bulb to his son, it just lit up in his hand. At first, he thought it was some sort of prank, but then he noticed that the bulb lit up whenever the electrical contacts on its bottom touched any part of his son’s body.

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Japanese Artist Twists Copper and Brass Wire Into the Most Incredible Sculptures

When it comes to metallic wire artworks, you’ll have a tough time finding a more talented artist than @tdaiki1216, a young Japanese art graduate who seems able to twist copper and brass wire into pretty much anything he sets his mind to, from sculptures that look like drawn manga, to slithering snakes and giant insects.

@tdaiki1216, whose real name is Tsutamoto Dawiki, first made headlines in Japan two years ago, when his incredibly detailed wire sculptures imitating manga drawings went viral on Twitter. Fixed into square wooden blocks and placed against a white background, his artworks looked exactly like manga comics, even though they were actually twisted pieces of wire. Those were impressive enough, but @tdaiki1216 has stepped up his game even more over these last few years, and is now specializing in more complex wire sculptures, some of which are simply mind-blowing.

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Woman Has Been Living in an Aseptic Glass Cage for 13 Years, Unable to Even Touch Her Loved Ones

53-year-old Juana Munoz, from Cadiz, Spain, has been living in a custom glass cage for the last 13 years. It is her prison, but also the very thing that keeps her protected from all the things that would otherwise kill her.

After being diagnosed with four life-threatening conditions – multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome and electrosensitivity – Juana Munoz had no choice but to isolate herself inside a 25-meter glass cage. She cannot leave that space without following a very strict protocol, and anyone coming in must first shower with chemical-free cleaning products and wear only organic cotton clothes. The most painful thing is that her family cannot touch, let alone hug her without putting her life in danger. Juana’s two children, aged 26 and 29, are only allowed to hug her two times a year, and only after undergoing several days of preparation.

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Chinese Father Finds Missing Daughter After 24-Year Search

Wang Mingqing’s daughter went missing 24 years ago, but even if the chances of finding her became lower with each passing year, he never gave up hope. After decades of tireless searching, the nearly-impossible happened – Wang received confirmation that his daughter had been found thousands of miles away, on the other side of the country.

Wang’s life was forever shattered on January 8, 1994. He and his wife were serving customers at their their fruit stall in Chengdu, China’s Sichuan province, and their 4-year-old  daughter Wang Qifeng was playing nearby. All the man remembers is that they both lost site of the girl for a little while, and she was gone. When they realized she was missing, both parents started looking for her, calling out her name and asking passers-by if they had seen her. They spent all day searching for Qifeng, but when they finally went home at 1 a.m., all they could do was weep.

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Man Attacks Actor Playing Roman Soldier in ‘Passion of Christ’ Play to Save Jesus

A Brazilian man was recently arrested after jumping on stage during a Passion of the Christ theater play and hitting an actor playing a Roman soldier over the head with a motorcycle helmet, in a bid to save Jesus from getting crucified.

The bizarre incident took place last week, in the Brazilian town of Nova Hartz, during a staging of the Passion of the Christ organized by the municipality. Over 1,000 people had gathered in the town square to watch the play in celebration of Good Friday, but none of them anticipated the twist that was to come. During the crucifixion act, as one of the actors playing a Roman soldier pretended to stab Jesus with his spear to check if he was dead, a man from the audience climbed up on stage and hit him over the head with a metal motorcycle helmet.

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Japanese System Projects Realistic Shadows of Moving Men on Window Curtains to Protect Women Living Alone

“Man on the Curtain” is an ingenious system that uses your smartphone to project full-motion silhouettes of men on window curtains to deter criminals targeting women who live by themselves.

Tokyo may be one of the safest cities in the world, but crimes do sometimes occur and women who live alone are among the most targeted victims. Since the majority of Japanese people don’t like the idea of a roommate, apartment management company Leo Palace 21 has developed a “crime prevention projector kit” that gives would-be criminals stalking the apartments of female tenants the impression that they are not alone.

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Farmer Moves Three-Storey House 40 Meters to Avoid Demolition

A farmer from Southern China’s Jianxi Province managed to move his entire house 40 meters away from the site of a road construction site, by using an impressive system of wooden sleepers and winches.

Gao Yiping had completed work on his three-storey house in Zhouxi Town in 2014, and he and his family had only lived in it for just over a year when local authorities notified him that it was standing right in the middle of a new road construction site and needed to be demolished. The state would offer some compensation, but Gao, who had spent around 1 million yuan ($160,000) and several years building his dream home, just couldn’t bare the thought of seeing it demolished so soon. So, last year, he started searching for an alternative.

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