The Pink Panthers – A Unique Piece of British Military History

Pink hardly seems like an appropriate color for combat military vehicles, but there was a time when the British military had a fleet of pink Land Rovers that affectionately became known as the “Pink Panthers”.

Khaki and beige are the two most common colors used on military vehicles, but when it comes to desert camouflage, there was a time when pink was the best choice. ‘Desert pink’ as it was once referred to, was first used in the Africa campaign of World War 2, but British researchers later confirmed that it was the most suitable camouflage color for the desert, so a fleet of pink Series 2A Land Rover jeeps was also part of the British SAS from 1968 until 1984. They were known as the Pink Panthers, or Pinkies.

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Family Shocked to Learn That Their 3-Month Husky Dog Is Actually a Fox

A Peruvian family whose pet dog started chasing and eating neighbors’ chickens and ducks were shocked to learn that their 3-month-old Husky was actually an Andean fox.

Maribel Sotelo, a woman from the city of Comas, in Peru, had no choice but to call the Forest and Wildlife Service and ask for assistance with her pet dog, Run Run, after neighbors started complaining that he was the reason that their poultry and guinea pigs – which are edible in Peru, by the way – were going missing. Sotelo had also noticed the three-month-old “Husky dog” chasing other animals around, but now her neighbors were asking to pay for the damages, so she notified the authorities.

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A Stay at the World’s Most Remote Hotel Will Cost You $35,000

Perched on the ridge of the Don Sheldon Amphitheater of Denali’s breathtaking Ruth Glacier, in Alaska, and reachable only by air, Sheldon Chalet is famous as the world’s most remote hotel.

Alaska’s Denali National Park stretches six million acres and is a shelter for grizzly bears, caribou, moose, wolves and other wildlife. It’s one of the most beautiful places you can visit in the United States, but also one of the most inaccessible. For example, the Don Sheldon Amphitheater, a glacial valley situated at an elevation of 6,000 feet (1,829 meters), was once only accessible by ski-equipped plane, but after the completion of the luxurious Sheldon Chalet, private helicopter rides also became an option.

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Isolated Villagers Spend 15 Years Carving a Road Through a Mountain

The people of Shenlongwan, a once-isolated village in the mountains of China’s Shanxi Province, spent 15 years carving through rock with chisels and hammers to connect their home to the world and escape poverty.

Benefiting from a very favorable climate, Shenlongwan has always been famous for its exquisite walnuts and pears, but getting their harvest to market used to be a serious challenge for the locals. That’s because until the year 2000, to reach the county seat of Changzhi City, they had to either detour through eight townships in three different provinces, or risk their lives climbing dangerous narrow ladders to reach a steep mountain pass. One day, the villagers decided that things had to change, and if the authorities wouldn’t build a road to their village, then they just had to do it themselves.

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No One Has Been Able to Locate the Source of This Mysterious Spring

For centuries, people have been asking themselves what the source of the underground spring known as Fosse Dionne spring in France’s Burgundy region might be, but they never got to the bottom of it, because they literally couldn’t get to the bottom of it.

The Fosse Dionne is a huge upsurge of water around which the town of Tonnerre was built. For as long as anyone can remember it has been spewing massive amounts of water, with a flow of around 311 liters of water per second on a regular basis, which can increase to 3,000 liters per second in rainy weather conditions. The Romans used it for drinking water, the Celts considered it sacred, and the French used it as a public bathhouse during the 1700s, but no one has ever been able to locate its source. Many have tried, some have died trying, but the source of the Fosse Dionne remains a mystery.

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This 70-Year-Old Albatross Is the World’s Oldest Known Wild Bird

The world’s oldest known wild bird is a Laysan albatross named Wisdom that biologists first identified and banded in 1956. She is now at least 70-years-old and just hatched another chick.

First banded in 1956, by biologist Chandler Robbins, who found her nest near a US navy base on the Midway Atoll that the world’s largest colony of albatross calls home, Wisdom has now outlived the man who discovered her, as well as all her male mates. Although cockatoos in captivity have been known to live nearly 100 years, for wild birds the odds of living over seven decades are extremely slim. Predators, food scarcity and, more recently, plastic waste, are all life-threatening factors that wild albatross deal with on a regular basis. And, yet, despite having the odds stacked against her, Wisdom has managed to live longer than any wild bird known to man.

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Family Honors Man Last Wish to Be Buried in His Beloved Truck

They say you can’t take material possessions with you to the grave, but a Mexican man decided to prove everyone wrong by asking to be buried with his precious truck.

Because of his drawn-out battle with an incurable disease, Don Adán Arana from Puerto San Carlos, in Mexico’s Baja California Sur, couldn’t enjoy the pick-up truck that his son had gifted him not too long ago. Sensing that he did not have much time on this Earth, Arana told his family that he wanted to be buried with the vehicle, so he could drive it in the afterlife. Respecting your loved ones’ last wishes is a serious matter in Mexico, so Don Adán Arana was laid to rest in his beloved truck.

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Ravioli Starfish Actually Looks Like Italian Pasta

Plinthaster dentatus, a secretive and elusive species of starfish found in the Atlantic Ocean, has been popularly dubbed “ravioli starfish” due to its uncanny resemblance to the popular Italian pasta.

The existence of this delicious-looking starfish has been known since 1884, and even though the species dates back to the time of the dinosaurs, its biology has been largely unknown to marine biologists and ocean observers. In fact, specimens have only recently been seen alive during a NOAA ocean exploration that spotted several ravioli starfish feeding on a sea sponge. According to experts, the elusive creatures get their nickname because of their pentagonal shape and puffy swollen gills.

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Life-size Fire-Breathing, Three-Headed Dragon Statue Draws Crowd to Russian Village

In recent years, the village of Kamenka in Russia’s Lipetsk region has become famous as the home of Zmei Gorynich, a giant three-headed statue of one of the most iconic villains of Slavic folk stories.

The “Kudykina Gora” family park on the outskirts of Kamenka village has become one of the most popular tourist attractions in Lipetsk largely thanks to a single exhibit – the statue of Zmei Gorynich, an “extremely realistic” and “frighteningly attractive” rendition of the main antagonist in dozens of Russian folk stories and legends. Created by Ukrainian sculptor Vladimir Kolesnikov, the impressive statue stands about 15 meters high and is about as large as you’d expect a fearsome three-headed dragon to be. Did I mention it also breathes fire and screams menacingly from time to time?

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Olive Wagyu – The World’s Rarest Type of Steak

With only about 2,200 heads of cattle bred specifically for it, of which only a few are harvested every month, olive wagyu is regarded as the rarest type of steak in the world.

The history of olive wagyu is closely tied to that of Shodoshima Island, in Japan’s Kagawa Prefecture. Also known as “Olive Island”, because of its microclimate, which is comparable to that of the Mediterranean, Shodoshima is the native home of Japan’s olive cultivation. It’s also a place where Wagyu cattle have been raised since the 8th century, mainly as animals of burden, cultivating rice paddies and hauling heavy loads thanks to their ample energy reserves. But until one local farmer came up with a way of incorporating Shodoshima’s main export into the cattle’s diet, Wagyu couldn’t stand the bitter taste of olives.

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Influencer Raffles Brand New SUV, Sparks Controversy When Her Mother Wins It

Mexican influencer Lore Garza caused quite the controversy online last week when she announced that the winner of the brand new KIA SUV she was raffling was her own mother…

Lore Garza, a popular Mexican social media personality with over 140,000 fans on Instagram alone, has been getting a lot of attention from news outlets over the past couple of weeks because of her latest attempt of “giving back” to her fans. In one of her most daring promotional efforts yet, Garza announced a raffle for a brand new KIA SUV. Anyone could enter for a chance to win, as long as they bought one or more tickets worth 350 pesos ($17). The raffle generated a lot of interest, so a lot of people tuned in to see who won the car, only to be left with their mouths opened when it was announced that Lore Garza’s own mother was the winner…

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Woman Convinces Husband He Has Alzheimer’s to Cover Up $600,000 Theft

A Connecticut woman has been accused of stealing over $600,000 from her husband’s bank account over the last 20 years and trying to cover it up by making him think he has Alzheimer’s disease.

Donna Marino was arrested last week for reportedly stealing money in the form of pension checks, workers’ compensation payments, and Social Security income from her husband of 20 years. When the man’s daughter discovered paperwork related to credit cards her father knew nothing about, she notified the police, convinced that her stepmother had taken control of the family finances. It was at that point that the unnamed man admitted to leaving Marino in charge of finances, because she had convinced him that he had Alzheimer’s disease.

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Wild Sparrow Refuses to Leave the Human Couple That Raised Her

A young couple in Koper, Slovenia are the proud parents of a wild sparrow that refuses to leave their side, even though she always has the freedom to go anywhere she wants.

Alesh and Janja, a young couple from Koper, in Slovenia, adopted their “child”, Chibi, when she was about 10-days-old. A friend of theirs found her while walking her baby. She was lying on the ground next to another dead sparrow, and her parents were nowhere to be found, so the woman took the baby sparrow home. Unfortunately, she had her own baby and couldn’t take care of another, especially one from a species she knew nothing about. That’s where Alesh and Janja came in; they didn’t know anything about sparrow chicks either, but there was plenty of information online, and they were willing to put in the work.

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This French Bookstore Is a Cat-Lover’s Dream Come True

You know what a good book goes great with? Well, apparently cats, and this new bookstore in Aix-en-Provence, France is all the proof you need.

Mon Chat Pitre opened its doors in June of this year, and it has already become somewhat of a local attraction in Aix-en-Provence, especially among cat lovers. It has a nice selection of books to choose from, but what really sets it apart from other bookstores in the city, or anywhere else in France for that matter, is the “decor”. As you walk around the bookstore looking for your next read, you have the opportunity, nay, the privilege, to stroke six furry felines that love nothing more than to lay on the books on offer and beg visitors’ attention.

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Treasure Hunters Claim They Are “on the Brink” of Finding $20 Billion Trove

A group of treasure hunters that has been searching for the fabled “Lemminkäinen Hoard” treasure in Finland since 1987 claims that they are finally just “meters away” from finding it.

Known as the Treasure Twelve, the group of treasure hunters has spent every summer since 1987 looking for the Lemminkäinen Hoard, the whereabouts of which were revealed to them by a mystic just before their death. Apparently, a labyrinthine cave complex near Helsinki is home to the most valuable treasure the world has ever known, with an estimated value of over $15 billion. Now, 34 years after their search for the Lemminkäinen Hoard began the Treasure Twelve are closer than ever to finally getting their hands on it.

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