An 81-year-old Russian woman with ties to the criminal underworld of Krasnodar was recently arrested for ordering the killing of a criminal investigations detective.

Lyudmila Ryabykh is not your average grandmother. Not only does the 81-year-old have a strong connection to members of Krasnodar’s organized crime, but she once threatened to kill a paramedic with a sawed-off shotgun and she recently placed a hit on a local detective that apparently rubbed her the wrong way. The pensioner was caught red-handed after ordering the killing of an officer from the Krasnodar police department and paying part of the reward for proof of his death. Unfortunately for her, Ryabykh didn’t know that her criminal associates had revealed her plan to the authorities, and she now risks spending the rest of her days behind bars.

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Pinanga subterranea, a new species of palm discovered by researchers at the Royal Botanic Gardens, is one of only two known plants that exclusively fruit and flower underground.

There are more than 2,500 species of palm known to science, but Pinanga subterranea, a new species discovered on the tropical island of Borneo, is the only one that flowers and fruits only underground. The plant and its sweet fruits are well-known to the island’s indigenous population, but it has somehow been overlooked by scientists until now. Dr Paul Chai, a Malaysian botanist and namesake of the palm species Pinanga chaiana was the first to spot the underground-flowering palm, and in 2018, Kew scientists Benedikt Kuhnhäuser, Peter Petoe and William Baker took some samples for research purposes and discovered the plant’s amazing abilities.

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An international team of scientists has reportedly created a genetically-modified ‘superbanana’ that contains significantly more nutrients, especially vitamin A.

Vitamin A deficiency has been plaguing poor countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia for hundreds of years, inhibiting children’s growth, causing blindness and significantly weakening their resistance to deadly treatable diseases such as diarrhea and measles. The World Health Organization estimates that 190 million preschool-aged children worldwide are deficient in vitamin A and that malnutrition accounts for 6% of early childhood deaths in Africa alone. Luckily, a cheap and viable solution to malnutrition and vitamin A deficiency, in particular, may be available in the very near future…

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The Sol e-book reader is a new and innovative e-book reader that you wear on your face, just like a pair of sunglasses.

If the humble Kindle isn’t just isn’t good enough anymore and you’re looking for the next big thing in the e-book reader space, you may want to check out the Sol e-book reader, an intriguing device shaped like a pair of sunglasses. Somewhat similar to a VR headset, the Sol is a much more simplistic gadget designed solely as a hands-free e-reader. Weighing only around 100 grams and shaped like a pair of black sunglasses, the Sol was created for a more comfortable reading experience, like reading a book while lying down. But, before you ask, no, you will not be able to flip pages with your eyes or the power of your mind…

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A Brazilian lawyer is currently under investigation after allegedly spending over 13,000 Brazilian reals ($2,700) at a shopping mall, and then claiming that someone had kidnapped him and used his credit card.

On May 19th, Rodrigo Barcelos de Oliveira, a lawyer from Rio de Janeiro, stormed into the 16th police precinct of the Brazilian city to report a serious crime. He told officers that earlier that day he was driving down the Avenida das Américas road when he was approached by two armed men on motorcycles and forced to pull over in the parking lot of Barra Shopping Center, a mall in the west side of Rio. There, one of the men took his credit card and spent five hours shopping around, while the other guy held him at gunpoint. He gave the men the PIN code to the card and they used it to the limit set by the bank. The kidnappers then left with the purchased products, his jewelry, phone, wallet and wedding ring.

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A New Zealand woman who had a small chicken bone lodged in her throat claims that she was prescribed an interesting remedy by an emergency room doctor – lots of Coke.

Beth Brash recently sat down with New Zealand magazine Stuff to tell the unusual story of how she managed to get rid of the chicken bone stuck in her neck. It all started when she visited her favorite Wellington restaurant and tried their new chicken dish. To be fair, the staff there asked if she was ‘alright with bones,’ and having visited multiple countries where serving meat on the bone was considered normal, she wasn’t put off by it. Unfortunately, while eating the spicy dish, the young woman started experiencing a kind of tickling in her throat, which turned out to be a small piece of chicken bone.

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Japanese metal processing company Yamaguchi Seisakusho has been getting a lot of attention for showcasing its capabilities by creating a very detailed wireframe car that looks almost rendered in augmented reality.

If you’ve ever played mobile video games like the widely popular Pokemon GO, you probably know a little about augmented reality or AR for short. It’s a technology that visually enhances the real world with computer-generated images, basically overlaying digital elements onto real-life environments. Looking at the photo of this white wireframe car, you’d be tempted to think that it was the product of augmented reality, but it was actually painstakingly created out of metal wire. Photos of it recently went viral on Japanese social media, because people just couldn’t believe it was real.

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A Florida police officer has come under fire for reportedly putting his own 3-year-old child in jail and even putting him in handcuffs as punishment for pooping his pants.

In a conversation captured on body camera, Lt. Michael Schoenbrod of the Daytona Beach Police Department can be heard telling a Department of Children and Families caseworker that his son was ‘having difficulty’ with toilet training. To teach the 3-year-old boy a lesson, he put him in jail on successive days back in October of last year and even handcuffed him on the second occasion. Schoenbrod said that after the traumatic experience, the child vowed to ‘never again poop his pants’.

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A 4-and-a-half-year-old Nelore breed cow known as Viatina-19 FIV Mara Imóveis was recently priced at $4.3 million, making it the most expensive cow in the world by a large margin.

One-third of the ownership of the cow was recently sold at an auction in Arandú, Brazil for 6.99 million real ($1.44 million), putting its total value at a staggering $4.3 million. Viatina-19 FIV Mara Imóveis had already been named the world’s most expensive bovine last year when half of its ownership was auctioned off for around $800,000, which was another record-breaking price at the time. The record-breaking transaction is indicative of the Nelore cattle breed’s genetic qualities, as well as the demand for high-quality animals with outstanding genetic characteristics.

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A Chinese manufacturing company has come under fire for allegedly firing employees who can’t finish a 5 km (3 miles) race in 30 minutes, because ‘they lack hard-working spirit’.

Mr. Liu, a man living in Suzhou City, China’s Jiangsu Province, filed a lawsuit against his former employer for wrongful termination after allegedly being fired for not being able to run 3 miles in 30 minutes at 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). Liu apparently applied for a job at a mechanical parts factory and, after passing a series of practical tests that involved electric welding and gas cutting, he was announced that he had gotten the job. After paying for a medical examination out of his own pocket, Mr. Liu started working at the company in a maintenance position. Little did he know that he still had one more big test to pass…

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Thai Ngoc, an 80-year-old farmer in Vietnam, claims that he hasn’t slept in over 60 years, since coming down with a fever as a young man. Somehow, this severe insomnia hasn’t affected his life.

Most people can’t go an entire day without a few hours of sleep, but one Vietnamese man claims that he has spent the last 60 years wide awake, without so much as a short nap. Thai Ngoc has been making news headlines in his home country for years now, ever since it was originally reported that he does not need any sleep to lead a happy, active life. Ngoc’s family, including his wife, children, friends, and neighbors insist that they have never seen the octogenarian sleep, and he insists that the complete lack of sleep has never affected him negatively.

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The Putrajaya Roundabout in the administrative capital of Malaysia holds the Guinness record for the world’s largest roundabout. It measures 3.4km in circumference and features 15 entry/exit points.

Located in the heart of Putrajaya, the administrative capital of Malaysia, the Persiaran Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Roundabout, aka Putrajaya Roundabout, is one of the most unusual attractions in the Southeast Asian country. It was designed by renowned Malaysian architect Hijjas Kasturi and inaugurated in 2003. A feat of modern infrastructure engineering, the world’s largest roundabout is built around Istana Melawati, the second-largest palace of Malaysia’s Yang di-Pertuan Agong, the Putra Perdana Landmark, and a luxurious five-star hotel. It is also the main access point to Putrajaya’s major attractions, including the prime minister’s green-domed office complex and the city’s enormous mosque.

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An Indian man is currently under investigation for fraud, after allegedly spending a total of 603 nights at a New Delhi 5-star hotel despite only paying for one night.

On May 30th, Ankush Dutta booked a room at the renowned Roseate House Hotel in Delhi. He was supposed to check out the next day, but according to investigators, he ended up living at the hotel continuously until January 22, 2021, without paying a dime for his stay, food, beverages, or any other services he used at the hotel during that period of time. It’s unclear how exactly the Indian man managed this feat, but the hotel has already filed a complaint against one of its employees, whom management suspects of conspiring with the clandestine guest. The exact nature of their relationship is unclear, but investigators believe that the employee may have received some kind of financial incentive for their assistance.

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An Italian professor who was recently fired for around 20 years of absence out of 24 years of service at schools near Venice has vowed to contest her recent firing by the Ministry of Education.

51-year-old Cinzia Paolina De Lio, a secondary school teacher who specializes in history and philosophy, became famous in her home country of Italy for managing to skip work for a total of 20 years out of the last 24 years of service at a number of schools around Venice. De Lio was originally sacked in 2017, after an inspection found her to be “unprepared” and “inattentive” in class, but she appealed the decision, and a judge reinstated her the following year. She continued to provide all sorts of excuses to miss work until Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation decided that her original termination had been justified, especially since she had been absent from the classroom for most of her two-and-a-half decades as a school professor.

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American company Throw Flame recently unveiled its latest product, Thermonator, the world’s first flamethrower-wielding robot dog.

Robot dogs have been around for a while now, and in countries like China, they’re actually competing against actual pooches. But it turns out that these four-legged robots can be more than lifeless pets. For example, Throw Flame, a US-based company specializing in flamethrowers, recently showcased the world’s first flamethrower-equipped robot dog. Dubbed “Thermonator”, it comes with a high-performance flamethrower mounted on its back which allows it to shoot flames up to 9 meters in front of it. According to the Throw Flame website, the Thermonator allows users to remotely “shoot flames anywhere you want!”

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