A French pensioner has appealed to authorities to help him finally remain in charge of his own taxes and not those of his namesake, whose yearly taxes he has been paying for the last 15 years.

Having a popular name does have some advantages. It’s easy to remember and people never look at you funny when you say it. However, it’s not all good, as the protagonist of today’s story will tell you. Francis Lopez, an 83-year-old man from Montpellier, France shares the same name, the same birth date, the same city, and even most of the digits in his social security number with another man, and for some reason, authorities always send him his namesake’s taxes as well. Lopez has been paying someone else’s taxes for 15 years, but because of a new tax withholding law, he is afraid that it will really start to cost him.

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I can think of a few adjectives to describe mosquitoes, but ‘beautiful’ is definitely not one of them. However, there is one notable exception – Sabethes cyaneus, a tropical breed of mosquito that can certainly be called eye-catching.

Found in the tropical forests of central and South America, the Sabethes mosquito is an elusive breed famous for its iridescent blue color and feather-like paddles formed by elongated scales, located on the tibia of each middle leg. The two hind legs arching over the body of the mosquito as it is feeding are also impressive and help build the Sabethes’ majestic appearance. Marveling at its beauty is a privilege, as this breed is well-known for being extremely skittish and difficult to photograph well.

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They say women are from Venus and men are from Mars, and nowhere is that more evident than in Ubang, a unique Nigerian rural community where men and women have their own separate languages.

It’s hard to believe that men and women who grow up together in the same community can end up speaking different languages, but in the case of Ubang’s residents, it’s totally true. It’s not exactly clear what proportion of the words in the men’s and women’s languages are different, but there are enough examples to make sentences sound different when spoken by the opposite sex. For example, for ‘clothing’ men use the word ‘nki’, while women say ‘ariga’; ‘kitchi’ means tree for men, while women say ‘okweng’. These are not just some subtle pronunciation differences, but totally different words and it’s been like this for as long as anyone can remember.

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