Two executives of a cosmetic company in China recently drew praise for an unusual way of thanking their staff for their loyalty and hard work – getting on their feet and washing the feet of their most hard-working employees.

Chinese bosses are notorious for subjecting their employees to arduous and horrific punishments for not reaching company sales goals – like making them crawl on all fours in public or eat cockroaches – but the heads of an unnamed cosmetics company in Jinan, China’s Shandong Province, recently proved that they are capable of exceptional display of gratitude. In a viral video that has been doming the rounds online this week, the two female executives can be seen getting down on their needs and washing employees’ feet.

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An English teacher at a private school in China’s Inner Mongolia region was forced to make a public apology after having bought a fake tuberculosis diagnosis online, just so he could take a longer vacation for China’s National Day.

The teacher, identified only as Mr. Du, reportedly paid 470 yuan ($67) for a fake chest scan and doctor’s diagnosis on the internet, both of which showed that he was suffering from tuberculosis, a serious and highly contagious pulmonary disease. He then presented the documents to his employers, hoping it would convince them to approve a lengthier medical leave, allowing him to prolong his China’s National Day vacation. Only he never considered how serious his fake diagnosis actually was.

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Artisans at London-based design studio Bompass & Parr teamed up with scientists at the Aerogelex laboratory in Hamburg, Germany, to transfer the properties of the world’s lightest solid material into an edible dessert.

Aerogel was invented in 1931, by American chemist Samuel Kistler as part of a bet he made with fellow scientist Charles Learned over who could replace the water in gels with air, without causing shrinkage. With an air content of  95% – 99.8%, aerogel is recognized as the lightest solid in the world, so it made sense for designers at Bompass & Parr to try and emulate the making-of process of aerogel to create the world’s lightest dessert.

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A 42-year-old man in India’s Uttar Pradesh state lost his life trying to eat 50 boiled eggs in one go, as part of a stupid bet he made with a friend.

On Monday, November 3rd, Subhash Yadav, 42, and a friend sat down to at get a bite to eat at the Bibiganj market in  the Jaunpur district. At one point, the pair began to argue and as their conflict escalated Yadav bet his friend 2,000 rupees (about $28) that he could eat 50 boiled eggs right then and there. His friend accepted, so they bought 50 eggs from a vendor and Yadav set out to down them one by one. Everything was going well and he was actually making good time, but as he popped the 42nd egg into his mouth, he suddenly fell unconscious.

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A floating tree stump known as the “Old Man of the Lake” has been bobbing in the blue water of Oregon’s Crater Lake for at least 120 years, baffling scientists with its upright orientation and allegedly even controlling the local weather.

The first account of the Old Man of the Lake dates back to 1896, when geologist and explorer Joseph Diller described a splintered and bleached white log floating vertically in Crater Lake. Five years later, Diller observed that the unusual log had moved 400 meters from the location it had originally been spotted at. Further research would show that the Old Man of the Lake is able to move more than four miles in just one day, despite lacking any apparent means of propulsion. How it’s able to do that is still a mystery, but it’s only one of many.

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A North Carolina man who allegedly joined a police chase and later handcuffed the suspect at gunpoint was eventually arrested for impersonating a police officer.

On the night of October 5, police in Wilson, North Carolina, got some unexpected help during a high-speed car chase. At about 11 pm, they stopped a car in search of a murder suspect, but as they approached the vehicle, the driver sped off. The officers got in their patrol car and pursued the suspect’s car, but about 2 miles into the car chase, something really strange happened. A black Ford Taurus with blue lights turned on sped past the patrol car, got in front of the suspect’s car, and slowed down, forcing the car behind to stop.

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Rebecca Munkombwe, an 11-year-old girl from Zimbabwe, is being hailed as a hero for allegedly saving a 9-year-old friend from the jaws of a crocodile by jumping on the reptile and gouging its eyes out.

According to Zimbabwean media, Rebecca and her friends had just got back from a swim in a stream near their home village of Sinderela, when they heard the screams coming from the water. The 11-year-old was shocked to see her 9-year-old friend Latoya Muwani being dragged into the water by a crocodile. While all the other children were petrified or running scared, Rebecca Munkombwe allegedly ran toward the water, jumped on top of the crocodile and started gouging its eyes out until it loosened its grip on Latoya.

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Chinese researchers have come under fire for using live, immature pigs as test dummies in high-speed crash simulations that killed seven of them immediately.

Animal rights activists around the world accused the researchers of unnecessary cruelty, after it was reported that they had used fifteen live pigs as crash test dummies for a study. The animals were allegedly denied food 24 hours before the gruesome tests, then strapped in for high-speed simulations that caused them various injuries, including bleeding, laceration, fractures, abrasions and internal bruising. Seven of the pigs were killed instantly, while the rest survived for another six hours. Scientists then carried out meticulous autopsies to find out how the pigs were injured and killed.

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A 59-year-old man from Moscow risks spending up to five years behind bard for allegedly using a live cat as a weapon against police, last year.

On October 4, 2018, the suspect, Gennady Shcherbakov, was reportedly sitting at the foot of his apartment building’s stairwell. He had been drinking heavily and was causing a ruckus, so some of his neighbors called the police to report the disturbance. However, when police officers arrived on the scene and told Shcherbakov to go home, he refused to comply and instead grabbed a nearby cat and shoved it in the face of one of the police officers. The confused feline allegedly tried clinging to the man’s face, scratching him badly.

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Iceland is one of the few countries in the world where McDonald’s doesn’t operate in. The fast food giant closed its last restaurant in the Northern-European country a decade ago, but the last burger they ever sold has been carefully preserved and it still looks surprisingly edible.

On October 31st, 2009, Hjortur Smarason had the honor of purchasing the last McDonald’s burger sold in Iceland, just before the restaurant’s final closing time. Like many of us, he had heard rumors that McDonald’s food doesn’t decay, and preserving the last burger sold in his home country gave him an extra reason to see if the rumors were true or not. He put the burger and the small order of french fries in a plastic bag and left it untouched for three years.

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