HayanTree, a popular restaurant and food reviewer on YouTube, has recently come under fire for causing a restaurant to close down after his false review negatively affected the business.

On December 7, HayanTree, who at the time sported just over 700,000 subscribers on YouTube, posted a video review of an all-you-can-eat soy sauce-marinated crab restaurant in Daegu. At one point, the popular YouTuber refills his plate, but notices grains of rice in his marinade, raising the suspicion that the restaurant might be reusing its unsold food. The controversial review quickly went viral, getting over 1 million views in a matter of days, and impacted the accused restaurant so profoundly that it had to be closed down a few days later.

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They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but looking at this new species of orchid discovered by scientists in the forests of Madagascar, it’s easy to see why it’s already been dubbed the “world’s ugliest orchid”.

With over 700 genera and around 28,000 individual species, orchids make up one of the largest plant families. Most of these species are associated with beauty and elegance, but the newest member of this large family doesn’t really fit that description. Gastrodia agnicellus, one of this year’s newly discovered plants and fungi, has no leaves, grows from a woolly tuberous stem, has a bland brownish color, and spends most of its life underground, emerging only to flower or produce fruit.

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A coal seam approximately 30 meters under Australia’s Mount Wingen has been burning continuously for approximately 6,000 years, earning the place its famous nickname, Burning Mountain.

Underground coal seam fires are not at all uncommon, in fact it’s estimated that about 1,000 coal seams are burning around the world at any one point. Such fires usually occur in coal-rich but less-developed countries, and are usually put out in a matter of days, a month at most. That’s not always the case though, and India’s Jharia coalfield, which has been burning continuously for over 100 years, is a perfect example. But even this century-old fire pales in comparison with the world’s oldest coal fire, an underground coal seem that has been smoldering for about six millennia.

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Nigerian artist Oscar Ukonu is a master of the ballpoint pen. He wields the writing tool with such precision and skill that he is able to draw artworks that cannot be distinguished from high-resolution photographs.

The self-taught artist started drawing when he was nine-years-old, but only got into hyperrealistic art during his time in architecture school. Up to that point, he had relied on the good ol’ pencil, but the moment in tried the ballpoint pen for the first time, in 2014, he knew he had found the perfect tool to take his art to a whole new level. He has been mesmerizing fans of hyperrealistic portraits with his incredible artworks ever since. Okonu describes his creative process as his process as “a practice in time and patience”, which makes sense, considering that each and every one of his pieces takes between 200 and 400 hours of work to complete’

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The Covid-19 lockdowns have had a very different effect on people. While the boredom made some depressed, it actually helped others discover hidden talents. Take Anna Chojnicka, who started creating adorable banana peel artworks.

To pass the time and keep her creative juices flowing, social entrepreneur Anna Chojnicka started experimenting with banana peel oxidation as an art medium. Instead of doodling on canvas or paper, she decided to simply bruise bananas with thin, blunt objects and let oxidation do the rest. The bruised peel becomes darker as the hours go by, revealing the design etched into it.

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The Brazilian city of Santos is famous as the birthplace of Pele, regarded by many as the greatest football player ever, but also for its unique looking waterfront skyline, which looks, well, a bit tilted.

The leaning apartment buildings of Santos have been around for decades, and even though the problem has been getting worse over time, so far authorities have chosen not to intervene, claiming the edifices are perfectly safe. The Santos skyline is made up of 651 buildings, all of which are somewhat tilted, some only about 5cm out of level, which counts as a construction flaw, others almost 2 meters, which makes them visibly tilted. But the issue isn’t only aesthetic, some apartments have windows and doors that no longer close properly, and others have plumbing issues. There have also been reports of inhabitants experiencing loss of balance issues on level ground, from spending too much time in their tilted apartments.

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Located on a small island, in the middle of Wanfeng Lake in southwestern China’s Guizhou Province, is one of the most stunning fairytale castles on Earth. Only it’s not actually a castle, but a four-star resort.

Built in 2011, the Jilong Castle Country Club, aka Jilongbao Resort, is one of the most impressive, yet unusual sights in all of China. On one hand, the location, the attention to detail and bridge linking it to the mainland are breathtaking, but on the other, it looks like something you would expect to find in a European country like Germany or France, where medieval castles actually still exist. Although China’s fascination with castles, and European architecture in general is well-known, it’s still a bit of an unusual tourist attraction.

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If you’ve always dreamed of packing up your house and moving around whenever you like, this foldable tiny house that comes with plumbing and electrical wiring pre-installed is going to seem mighty interesting.

Latvian startup Brette Haus only started producing its ingenious foldable houses last December, but its innovative design and technology has already made quite an impression both on the general public and housing experts. Using cross-laminated timber as the main construction material, Brette Haus can build a whole house in 8 weeks, and then install it anywhere in 3-4 hours. Because it doesn’t require a permanent foundation, the foldable house can be moved at any time, and has minimum impact on the land it’s set up on.

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Officially recognized as the coldest permanently inhabited settlement on Earth, the small Russian settlement of Oymyakon is probably home to the most resilient kids in the world.

Can you imagine sending your kids to primary school (years one through four) at -50° Celsius? Well, in Oymyakon, that’s pretty much standard procedure, as the one school in the rural locality only closes when temperatures drop under -52° Celsius. Children older than 11 have to be even tougher, as they get to stay home only when the temperature drops under -56° Celsius. Daytime temperatures around this time of year are around -50°C, which means that pupils of all ages have to brave the cold and get to school every morning.

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Turkish artist Deniz Sağdıç creates stunningly detailed portraits out of pieces of denim, using the different available shades of fabric to highlight even the tiniest details.

Deniz Sağdıç grew up surrounded by arts and crafts. Her father was a stained glass master, her uncle was a carpenter and a wood sculptor, her aunts worked as tailors, so she was exposed to art from a very early age. Ever since primary school, she spent a lot of time in her father’s workshop, helping him prepare the materials and cut his stained glass windows. She also spent a lot of time in her aunts’ tailor shop, discovering the secrets of the trade. So it didn’t really surprise anyone when the decided to go to art school.

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Inspired by the Covid-19 pandemic, French artist Gaetan Marron has confined himself to a transparent, 4m² plexiglass cube located inside a Marseille shopping mall for 20 days.

Titled “Non-Essentiel”, Gaetan Marron’s art performance is all about highlighting various issues caused by the lockdowns tied to the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, like the lack of human interaction, the lack of freedom, and the role of so-called non-essential activities like culture and art. Earlier this month, the Marseille-based artist locked himself in a small, transparent plastic cube located inside the local Les Docks Villages shopping center, for a period of 20 days. Passers-by can see him, they can talk to him, and, most importantly, they can donate to him, as Marron depends on donations from his visitors for food.

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Mount Fanjing, in southwestern China’s Wuling mountain range, is home to one of the most otherworldly sights on the planet: two small temples built atop a split rock spire, connected by an arched bridge, overlooking a stunning natural paradise.

Perched at the top of the natural rock spire known as the Red Clouds Golden Peak, the two small Buddhist temples have a history that goes back over 500 years, to the Ming Dynasty. How Buddhists managed to carry the needed materials up that precarious rock formation without modern technology remains a mystery, but the temple complex we see todays has been rebuilt according to its original look, only using sturdier materials like iron tiles, in order to resist the strong winds and overall harsh environment.

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A Connecticut mother was shocked to find that her 6-year-old boy used her credit card to spend a small fortune on his favorite smartphone game over a couple of months.

In July of this year, Jessica Johnson, a real-estate broker from Wilton, Connecticut, discovered that substantial sums of money were being deducted from her Chase account by Apple and PayPal. Thinking it was a mistake or fraud, the 41-year-old mother-of-one called the bank and ended up filing a fraud claim in July. By that time, her suspicious credit card charges had reached  a whopping $16,293.10, but it wasn’t until October that her bank told her that the charges were legit and she needed to contact Apple.

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A 24-year-old woman from Moscow, Russia, met her husband, Gideon, five years ago, at a hardware store, while shopping for photoshoot props. Gideon just looked irresistible, so she ended up buying “him”, and the rest is history. Gideon is a metallic briefcase…

Rain Gordon, who works as a nursery school teacher, claims that her fascination with inanimate objects began at a very young age. She has always believed that everything around her had a soul, and as time went by, her belief in animism only got stronger. In her early teenage years, she fell in love with a new shopping center that opened in her home city, but she knew people thought that was wrong, so she didn’t tell anyone. Rain is now opening up about her love story with Gideon the briefcase in order to break down the misconceptions and stigma surrounding romantic relationships with inanimate objects.

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A 65-year-old kung fu master is practicing an ancient technique known as “iron crotch”, which involves ramming a large wooden pole into his crotch to build-up the resistance of his private parts.

Wang Liutai is the curator of the Martial Arts Museum in Juntun Village, a small settlement on the outskirts of Luoyang, one of the four ancient capitals of China. He is also a kung fu master, but not the kind you’re used to seeing in old martial arts movies; Liutai specializes in a rare technique specific to Juntun known as “iron crotch”. It involves swinging a 2-meter-long, 40-kg-heavy wooden log with a steel plate cap straight into his crotch, while using qigong breathing techniques to steel himself.

A father-of-two, Wang has been practicing iron crotch for half a century and claims that if done correctly, the kung fu technique does not hurt and does not affect fertility. The technique is just one of many devised in Juntun to help practitioners resist pressure, pain or hits to various sensitive areas. Other similar techniques involve iron throat, iron head, iron chest, and iron back, but iron crotch is definitely the rarest, with just 5 practitioners still around in the village.

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