Government office workers in the Indian city of Banda, Uttar Pradesh state, recently drew a lot of attention online for wearing motorcycle helmets indoors to prevent head injuries in case the roof collapsed on them.

Photos of electricity department employees working at their office in Banda while wearing these large motorcycle helmets on their heads have been doing the round on social media ever since Indian news agency ANI shared them online. According to several sources, the government employees aren’t huge motorcycle fans, they’re just wearing the protective head gear in case the roof of the dilapidated building they work in starts to fall apart. They told reporters that they first reported the dangerous state of the office building several years ago, but no one did anything about it, so they decided to start wearing helmets.

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Onion hardly seems like the best vegetable to base a soft drink on, but Onionade doesn’t contain the kind of onion you’re used to, but a new type that not only doesn’t make you cry when you chop it, but it unusually sweet as well.

Back in 2016 we reported on one of the most interesting inventions to come out of Japan in the past few years – a tear-free onion named “Smile Ball”. Developed over a period of 14 years by scientists at House Foods Group, Smile Ball onions release almost no tear-inducing compounds when chopped or eaten raw, and have a much sweeter taste than regular onions. Available in Japanese grocery stores for the past two years, Smile Balls have been marketed mainly as tear-free alternatives to the common onion, but now its producers want to promote the vegetable’s sweetness and pleasant flavor as well. And what better way to do that than by producing an onion-based drink called Onionade?

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Wuxia (martial arts and chivalry) novels and films are very popular in China, but while most people are content just reading or watching the exploits of fictional heroes, some go to extremes in order to experience these adventures themselves.

Jin Yong is considered one of the greatest and most popular wuxia writers in history, and his novels have enjoyed massive success among both Chinese communities around the world and have been translated in several foreign languages. His works have inspired dozens of martial arts movies and TV series, and if news reports in Chinese media are to be believed, they’ve even pushed some die-hard fans to live their lives behind, venture into the mountains, and train like Yong’s fictional characters.

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A 36-year-old mother got so worked up because her son couldn’t understand how to solve a math problem while doing homework that she suffered a heart attack.

Parenting in general can get pretty tough, and I can attest that trying to explain math to a child can be frustrating, but according to a recent news report from China is can be literally life-threatening. A 36-year-old mother, surnamed Wang, had to be rushed to the hospital on November 1st after suffering a heart-attack while doing homework with her 9-year-old son. She was apparently explaining a math problem to him and got so frustrated that he didn’t get it that her heart gave out.

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A popular seafood restaurant in Singapore has been criticized online for its “cruel” claw machine which gave patrons the chance to catch a live crab for $5 a token.

The chief executive of House of Seafood has had to issue a public apology after a viral video showing people using a pink claw machine to catch live crabs drew a lot of criticism both from the general public and Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA). In a statement posted on Facebook, Francis Ng claimed that the live claw machine was actually meant to educate children about marine life, while critics of the controversial attraction said that it caused unnecessary harm to the crustaceans and encouraged people to see the live creatures as thing to be won in a game. As a result of the backlash the claw machine attracted, House of Seafood decided to temporarily close the machines at all of its locations.

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A 36-year-old woman from Amugagara, in Uganda, made national news headlines for marrying three men at once after her monogamous relationship failed.

The daughter of a Christian pastor in Uganda’s Teso community, Ann Grace Aguti had been at odds with her clansmen ever since she decided to get multiple husbands. However, she always defended her choice by saying that she had been married to only one man, like it is customary in her community, but her husband had turned out to be a big disappointment. She had wanted a “tender, loving husband, who can provide all my needs as a housewife,” but he turned out to be utterly useless, so she left him and decided to try her luck again, this time with multiple men at once.

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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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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 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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Having youthful looks is usually regarded as an enviable asset, but for a 34-year-old man in Central China, looking like a boy less than half his age is apparently a curse. He cannot get married, and everyone considers him a child.

For Zhu Shengkai,a 44-year-old man from a rural area in Xiantao City, Wuhan, troubles began at the age of 6, when he was hit in the head with a stone, while playing with the other children. There was no bleeding, but according to Zhu’s parents he had a fever for three days straight. Worried, they took him to a hospital, where doctors discovered a blood clot in his brain and performed emergency surgery to remove it. The boy recovered well and his life seemed normal for a few years after that, but at age 9 his family noticed that Zhu looked undeveloped compared to other boys his age. In fact, he looked like he hadn’t grown at all since his accident…

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Kumitaiso, a gymnastic formation in which students climb on top of one another to create a pyramid, has at the center of growing controversy in Japan, due to the high number of serious injuries reported by schools.

At its core, kumitaiso is a routine supposed to encourage teamwork and endurance among young students, and as such it has been a mainstay of annual school sport festivals across Japan. However, problems began to occur as the human pyramids organized by schools started getting higher and more difficult to support by the students at the bottom. Seeing dozens of students working together to create these complex structures is undoubtedly impressive to behold, which is why many schools kept pushing the limits over the years, with some devastating results. With hundreds of reported injuries reported every year, many in the Asian country are asking authorities to ban kumitaiso.

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