Indonesian Man Walks Backwards 800 Km to Meet the President

An Indonesian man has been making news headlines around the world for embarking on a unique challenge to save the environment. 43-year-old  Medi Bastoni is walking backward some 800 kilometers, from his village in East Java all the way to the capital Jakarta, to meet the president.

Bastoni set off from his home village of Dono, in East Java, on Jul. 18 and opes to reach the presidential palace in Jakarta in time to celebrate Indonesia’s 74th Independence Day on August 17, alongside President Joko Widodo. The main goal of his unique endeavor is to ask Indonesia’s president for a symbolic tree seed, to be planted in the forests on Mount Wills, near his village, to raise awareness about preserving the rainforest. He claims activists are already fighting to preserve the environment, but a symbolic gesture by the president would boost their efforts even more. And his willing to walk backwards for 800km just to meet Indonesia’s leader.

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Isolated Lighthouse in Iceland Hailed as Perfect Location to Survive Zombie Apocalypse

Perched on top of a tall slither of rock, six miles off the coast of Iceland, Þrídrangaviti Lighthouse is considered by many an introvert’s dream home and a wonderful placed to be in case of a zombie apocalypse.

Þrídrangaviti, which translates as “three rocks”, was built in 1939, soon before the start of World War 2. Nowadays, the lighthouse is accessible by helicopter and even features a small helipad to make landing there easier, but back in 1938, when work on it began, helicopters hadn’t yet been invented. Brave workers had to to scale the 120-foot-high rock to reach the pinnacle, where they laid the foundation of the lighthouse by hand, while ensuring that the strong winds and rain didn’t send them plunging into the freezing North Atlantic Ocean.

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Video Filter Glitch Reveals Popular Young Vlogger to Be 58-Year-Old Woman

A glamorous young Chinese streamer known as “Your Highness Qiao Biluo” has angered her hundreds of thousands of fans after a technical glitch revealed that she was actually a 58-year-old woman using a filter to make herself look young.

It used to be that seeing things made you believe they were true; we even have an old saying for it – I’ll believe it when I see it – but nowadays, with all these advanced AI-powered technology, trusting your eyes is probably not a very good idea. Case in point, the recent controversy surrounding the real identity of famous Chinese online personality Your Highness Qiao Biluo a “cute goddess” worshiped by thousands of loyal fans watching her every stream on Chinese platform Douyu. It turns out that the good-looking vlogger was actually a 58-year-old woman using one of the many video filters available on the platform to deceive people into showing her with donations.

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Construction Company Will Turn Your Backyard into a Tropical Oasis

Why travel to a tropical seaside resort when you can have a turquoise oasis complete with golden sand right in your backyard? That’s the question one Louisiana construction company hopes will make its custom backyard oasis a bestseller.

Having a pool or a small pond in your backyard is great, but if you could choose between those and a tropical-looking swimming pond, and they all cost about the same, which one would you choose? Louisiana-based Zydeco Construction, LLC hopes it’s the latter, and it’s willing to create the most spectacular custom oasis to prove it’s worth the investment. 33-year-old Eric White, the founder of Zydeco, claims his beautiful swimming ponds feature crystal turquoise water and are surrounded by fine sandy beaches to recreate the look and feel of a tropical summer destination. They can be made as small or large as the client’s property allows and prices start at around $20,000.

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German Company Uses Super-Strong Glue to Suspend 17.5-Tonne Truck in the Air for an Hour

DELO, a small German company specializing in industrial adhesives, recently set a new Guinness Record after successfully suspending a 17-tonne-truck in the air for an hour using only super-strong glue.

In an attempt to show that it produces the world’s strongest adhesives, Bavaria-based company DELO set out to lift a 17.5 tonne truck one meter above ground using only 3 grams of a very strong glue developed specifically for this event. They used an industrial crane and four aluminum cylinders with a cover surface of of 3.5 cm (the diameter of a standard soda can) bonded to the wheels of the truck with a few drops of high-temperature-resistant DELO MONOPOX adhesive. The truck hung in the air for a full hour, thus breaking the previous record of 16.09 tonnes.

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Man Sues “Extrasensory Service Company” After Psychics Fail to Bring Back His Estranged Wife

The Sixth Sense, a Russian company that allegedly specializes in extrasensory services, fortune-telling, spiritism and astrology, was recently ordered to pay damages to a client after its psychics and magicians failed to bring back his estrange wife.

The unnamed plaintiff, from the Siberian city of Omsk, was left by his wife in August of 2017. He told the court that he was devastated at the time, but found hope in a TV advert that promised to help people win back spouses and lovers, as well as remove various types of curses. With nothing else to cling on to, the desperate man immediately called the company, and was told by the manager that she could bring his wife back to him, as she possessed a certain “magic, sensory knowledge” that had helped her deal with similar cases before.

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You Can Now Relax by Cuddling a Cow for $75 an Hour

Cow cuddling has been around in Europe for a while, but now a farm in upstate New York is giving Americans the chance to unwind by getting up close and personal with peaceful bovines for just $75 and hour.

Mountain House Farm, a beautiful 33-acre retreat in New York, has been offering wellness sessions with horses to guests for the past nine years, but recently added cow cuddling on the menu as well. Suzanne Vullers, a Netherlands native who runs the farm with her husband, brought two cows back with her from a visit to her home country, after learning about the hearing about the health benefits of cuddling with cows. The practice has really taken off as a form of stress relief therapy in European countries like Switzerland and the Netherlands, and Vullers was surprised that it was relatively unknown in the US. So she brought Bonnie and Bella to join their friendly horses and help visitors relax as part of what Mountain House Farm calls the “Horse & Cow experience”.

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Doing 1,000 Squats Puts Competitive Girls in the Hospital

We’re always told that exercise is good for our health, but as two Chinese girls recently learned the hard way, overdoing it can have life-threatening consequences.

On July 10, Tang, a 19-year-old girl from Chongqing, China, decided to challenge her best friend to a squatting competition to see which one of them had more stamina. They set up a video call and started doing one squat at a time to see which would give up first. The problem was that both of them took it very seriously and refuse to stop despite pushing their leg muscles to the limit. Tang told doctors that they both must have done around 1,000 squats before they decided to call it quits, but by that time their leg muscles had begun to break down.

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Parents Refuse to Donate Kidney to Their Dying Child Because She Is a Girl

A 16-year-old Indian girl is haplessly awaiting her death after suffering acute kidney failure, because her parents refuse to donate one of their kidneys to her because she is a girl.

Kanchan Kumari, from Avgil village, in Sheikhpura, fell seriously ill two months ago and was rushed to the hospital after complaining of intense pain in her midriff and back. After running a series of tests, doctors there issued a terrible verdict – acute kidney failure, and told her family that she urgently needed a kidney transplant to increase her chances of survival. Unfortunately, neither of her parents expressed any interest in donating one of their organs to 16-year-old Kanchan, because she is a girl, which apparently means she is not worth the trouble.

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This Famous Vietnamese Villa Has a Tomb in the Middle of the Living Room

From the outside, the famous “Tomb Villa” in the Vietnamese province of Ben Tre looks like an ordinary household, but step foot through the front door and you’ll notice that instead of the usual dining table there is a creepy marble tomb complete with a shrine to the person buried in it.

Living in a mansion with a tomb in the middle of the living room sounds like the plot of a horror movie, but for the inhabitants of the so-called Tomb Villa of Tan Thac Commune it’s everyday life. It sounds unbelievable, and many people still don’t believe it, especially since Vietnamese law clearly states that burials can only be carried out in cemeteries or on the holy ground of churches and temples, but the story of this unique villa has been documented online for over a decade now. It’s an inhabited house with an occupied tomb in the middle of the living room…

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Polish Village Where Boys Are Rarely Born Offers to Reward First Couple to Have a Son

Miejsce Odrzańskie, a small village in southern Poland, near the border with the Czech Republic, is offering to reward the first local family to give birth to a son. None have been born there in the last nine years, and the youngest one that still lives in the village is 12-years-old.

No one knows why, but couples in Miejsce Odrzańskie rarely have boys. Most of the 300 or so inhabitants are women, and locals say it’s been this way for as long as they can remember. Mayor Rajmund Frischko recently told Polish reporters that after checking historical records and reviewing registered birth certificates he can confirmed that rare male births are not just a recent anomaly. He has also pledged to reward the first couple to give birth to a boy.

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Belgian Bar Takes Patrons’ Shoes as Collateral to Prevent Beer Glass Theft

Stealing elaborate beer glasses has become an increasingly popular trend among patrons of Belgian beer bars, so much so that in recent years owners of such establishments have started implementing all sorts of safety measures. For example, one bar in Ghent asks visitors to hand over one of their shoes as collateral.

Belgian beer is famous the world over, so it’s no surprise that tourists flock to beer bars when visiting the European country, but lately many of them have developed a habit of leaving with a souvenir. Philip Maes, owner of The Beer Wall bar in Bruges, said that he loses over 4,000 beer glasses a year, which can get pretty expensive, as many of these glasses are elaborate works of art custom made for his establishment. A beer glass can cost up to 50 euros ($55) so having thousands of them stolen adds up to a significant financial loss. So Maes and other bar owners have implemented security measures to discourage beer glass thefts.

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Thai Restaurant Has Been Serving the Same Batch of Soup for 45 Years

Wattana Panich is a one of the most popular restaurants in Bangkok’s Ekkamai neighborhood, with hundreds of hungry patrons coming in to feast on its selection of delicious soups and stews every day. But the secret of the flavorsome dishes served at this Thai eatery may put a lot of Westerners off.

One of the most popular dishes at Wattana Panich is the rich beef noodle soup, made with stewed and raw beef, tripe, meatballs, internal organs and spices. But the most important ingredient is the broth, which, believe it or not, has been simmering for 45 years. It sounds  strange, but it’s true. Instead of throwing away the leftover broth every night, the owners of Wattana Panich carefully strain it and store it to be used as the base for next day’s batch of soup. They’ve been doing this every day for over four decades and credit it as the main secret to their delicious dishes.

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The Immortal Jellyfish – The Only Creature Known to Be Able to Live Forever

Turritopsis dohrnii, a small species of jellyfish native to the Mediterranean, is commonly known as the “immortal jellyfish, and it literally lives up to its name. Possessing the ability to revert to its a sexually immature stage instead of succumbing to an inevitable death, this tiny creature holds the secret to true biological immortality.

Humans have fantasized about immortality since the beginning of time. We have countless myths and stories about it, but until the mid-1990s we had yet to find any proof that eternal life on this earth was possible. In 1996, researchers published a study about a small species of jellyfish capable of reverting from an adult, solitary individual to its juvenile colonial state, thus cheating death and achieving potential immortality. Just as long as it wasn’t consumed by predators and it could be sustained by its environment, the jellyfish could repeat this cycle indefinitely and live forever. To this day, the immortal jellyfish remains the only known immortal animal.

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Alleged “Sonic Attacks” at Cuban Embassy Shrunk Victims’ Brains, Study Suggests

Between 2016 and 2018 a number of US and Canadian diplomats working at an embassy in Havana, Cuba, reported symptoms like headaches, nausea and memory loss after hearing mysterious noises. The phenomenon became known as the “Cuban Sonic Attacks”, but Havana authorities have so far denied any wrongdoing. However, a recent study suggests something did affect the diplomats, as dozens of them showed structural changes to their brains, such as a 5 percent shrinkage.

Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the disturbing study analyzed advanced MRI scans of the brains of 40 diplomats that reported strange symptoms while being stationed in Havana, and compared them to those of 48 healthy people with similar ages and ethnic backgrounds. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that the whole white matter volume -areas of the brain central nervous system that affects learning – of the affected diplomats was roughly five percent smaller than that of healthy individuals. Authors added that connectivity differences in the brain’s auditory and visuospatial areas were also noticed between diplomats and control participants.

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