Located in the Russian Far East, the island of Sakhalin is allegedly home to giant versions of common plants like buckwheat, burdock and butterbur that can grow up to 5 meters tall.

Sakhalin is known for being the largest island in the Russian Federation, as well as a point of contention between Japan and Russia over the centuries. However, according to obscure reports going back over a decade, the northernmost island of the Japanese archipelago, as well as the nearby Kuril Islands are home to versions of ordinary herbaceous plants of truly gigantic proportions. Plants that normally reach the knee of an average adult, on these islands allegedly grow several times the height of a human.

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Gosiame Thamara Sithole, a 37-year-old woman from South Africa , reportedly gave birth to the world’s first decuples – 10 babies from a single pregnancy.

The first recorded case of decuplets is currently shrouded in mystery, as  ten days since the woman allegedly brought the 10 babies into the world, no one has seen either the mother or the newborns. All we have to go on at this point are media reports and statements made by the babies’ father and other relatives, all of which claim that Gosiame Thamara Sithole did in fact give birth to 10 babies – seven boys and three girls – at the end of a 29-week pregnancy. Apart from the suspicious absence of the mother, there are a few things that don’t really add up, though…

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A group of Pakistani police officers are facing suspension after allegedly arresting 19 employees of a fast food restaurant in Lahore for refusing to give them free burgers.

According to local reports, staff at a Johnny & Jugnu fast food restaurant in Lahore, Pakistan, were rounded up and arrested at around 8 PM on Saturday and held in custody overnight for having the audacity to refuse a group of policemen free burgers last week. Employees weren’t even allowed to close down the kitchen, allegedly leaving the fryers running and customers waiting in line for their orders. In an official statement, Johnny & Jugnu representatives offered details about the incident, explaining that it had been caused by staff’s refusal to give policemen free burgers.

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A Brazilian young man recently got a rather humiliating birthday party thrown for him by police after being arrested for theft right on the day that he turned 18.

Celebrating your 18th birthday should be a joyous occasion, but for one Paulo Rodrigo das Neves, from Brazil’s Rio Grande do Norte region, the event was anything but. Arrested on his birthday after being caught on camera stealing sound equipment and other parts from people’s cars, the birthday boy got to enjoy a humiliating celebration at the police station, with staff there singing him “Happy Birthday” and even serving cake and soda in his honor. To make matters worse, the whole thing was filmed and posted online.

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Most 90-year-olds can barely walk, let alone exercise, but 90-year-old Takishima Mika not only conducts daily fitness regimens religiously, but she actually works as a fitness instructor at a gym.

For most of us, “age is just a number” is just a tired cliché, but people like Takishima Mika, aka “Takimika”, are proof that it doesn’t have to be. The sprightly pensioner, who turned 90 on on January 15, is more active than most 20-year-olds and probably fitter too. She is Japan’s oldest fitness instructor and has become somewhat of a minor celebrity in the Asian country, both because of her excellent physical shape, and her positive attitude and infectious smile. But Takimika wasn’t always like that. In fact, her transformation began late in life, when she was already in her 60s.

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An Indian woman who had left her family home in 2010 and hadn’t been seen since was recently found living just 500 meters from her parent’s home, in the house of a man she had fallen in love with.

Sajitha’s family had given up home of ever finding her, after she simply walked out of the house one day, in 2010. Thinking that she had died or was living thousands of miles away somewhere, they never even entertained the idea that she could be in the same village, let alone in walking distance from them. As it turns out, the woman, who was 18 at the time of her disappearance, simply walked out of the family home and into that of her secret lover, a local man who she was convinced her parents wouldn’t approve of. How they managed to keep the secret from both of their families for over a decade is a tale fit for Bollywood.

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A team of researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has managed to genetically modify potato plants to glow under fluorescent cameras when stressed by various factors.

One of the biggest challenges of modern agriculture is reacting to stress factors before it’s too late. Plants don’t really have a way of conveying how they feel, and, more often than not, by the time visible symptoms appear, it’s already too late to do anything about it. But scientists are hoping to fix this big problem with the help of advanced genetic manipulation. A team of Israeli researchers led by Dr. Shilo Rosenwaser managed to genetically modify a potato plant so that it glows under fluorescent camera when affected by physical stress (lack of water, cold weather, lack of sunlight, strong light etc.).

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Fan Bingbing, a popular actress, model, singer, and China’s highest-paid celebrity for the last four years, is suing one of her doppelgangers for relying on her looks to sell products during online streams.

In many cases, looking like a popular celebrity can be considered a blessing, but in the case of one doppelganger of Chinese superstar Fan Bingbing, this turned out to be more than a curse. Up until September of last year, 32-year-old Chen Xinling had been able to use her striking resemblance to Fan Bingbing to build a strong following on a series of Chinese streaming platforms and even start a lucrative business selling products on Chinese e-commerce site Taobao. But the dream turned into a nightmare when Chen discovered that her uncanny resemblance to Fan Bingbing was actually a legal liability.

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A new Japanese service is drawing attention for allowing both individuals and companies to rent out “fat people” for 2,000 yen ($18) per hour.

Renting people for various purposes isn’t anything new in Japan. From renting someone to befriend your cheating partner’s lover and convince them to back off, to renting middle-aged men for company, the offers vary a lot, and starting this month you can add another option to the list – renting fat people. Called “Debucari”, the new service allows virtually anyone to rent a fat person by the hour. Apparently, fat people – over 100 kilograms – are somewhat of a rarity in Japan, so the entrepreneur behind the service thought that making them available via an online service would be a great business opportunity.

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If you feel like you’ve run out of body parts to accessorize, you may want to check out “Mundstück” a line of chin jewelry designed by German company MYL Berlin.

As you can see in the photos, Mundstück (Mouthpiece) is a piece of metal designed to be worn on the chin. Only it doesn’t require any piercing, instead it attaches to the inside of the wearer’s lower lip via two blunt hooks. It’s apparently quite comfortable to wear, doesn’t impede the wearer’s speech at all, and can even be worn when eating. And best of all, it helps you stand out, which is why anyone would wear something like this in the first place, isn’t it?

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Anand Dhawaj Negi, a retired bureaucrat turned desert farmer, spent over two decades of his life turning the cold wastes of northern India’s Himachal Pradesh into a vibrant oasis.

In 1977, the Indian Government kickstarted an ambitious program to mitigate the adverse effects of desertification in the Asian country’s cold and hot deserts. A. D. Negi  worked in the financial department in charge of the Desert Development Program and saw millions of dollars go down the drain with no real results to show for it. Whenever he asked scientists and officials involved in the program why there was no real progress, the answer would always be that they lacked the technology to develop any type of sustainable crops in the inhospitable environment that is the desert. A farmer’s son himself, Negi grew tired of excuses and took a leave of absence in 1999 to take a crack at it himself. By 2003, he had already permanently retired from his job to concentrate all of his energy on his growing desert oasis.

A native of Sunam village in Kinnaur, Negi took it upon himself to turn a barren patch of land in the cold desert of Himachal Pradesh into a green oasis just to show everyone, particularly the struggling farmers in the area that it could be done. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do in the world, but the former bureaucrat knew what he was getting into and had the ambition and patience to see it through.

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A 75-year-old retired attorney from Chicago recently became the oldest American to ever conquest Everest, the world’s tallest mountain top. The craziest thing is that he had only started mountaineering 7 years prior.

Arthur Muir, a married father of three and grandfather of six, had been fascinated with mountain climbing ever since his father gave him a book about the Himalayas when he was a child, and that fascination only grew when  Barry Bishop, a legendary climber and conqueror of Everest, visited his high-school in 1964. However, he never followed his dream of picking up mountaineering until a friend convinced him to do so, seven years ago, but once he did, he couldn’t stop.

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In what can probably described as the weirdest wedding ceremony of 2021, so far, an Indian man ended up marrying the bride’s sister, after his betrothed succumbed to a heart attack during the wedding.

The bizarre incident took place last week, in Uttar Pradesh’s Etawah district. The young bride, Surabhi, suddenly fell unconscious right next to the groom, Manjesh Kumar, right before the ‘pheras’ ceremony, an important ritual in Hindu weddings. The woman reportedly said that she felt unwell and then collapsed. An ambulance was called, but all paramedics could do was confirm the young woman’s death. One would assume that the tragic event would result in a cancelled wedding, but that was not the case here…

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A Thai doctor recently took to Facebook to share photos of a rather unusual patient – a cockroach that someone spotted on the side of the road after being stepped on.

Last week, Thanu Limpapattanawanich, a veterinarian from Krathum Baen, in Thailand, found himself having to save the life of a very special patient. A person came in one day with an injured cockroach that they had witnessed being accidentally stepped on by someone else. Unable to let the insect die on the side of the road, the person took it in the palm of their hand and brought it to the Sai Rak Animal Hospital. Instead of laughing at the person who brought in the bug, Dr. Limpapattanawanich took the case and treated the cockroach for free.

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A bank employee in India, who was recovering from the coronavirus disease wreaking havoc through his country, was allegedly denied leave and forced to come in to work while hooked up to an oxygen tank.

Arvind Kumar works as a manager at a Bokaro branch of Punjab National Bank, in the state of Jharkhand, recently showed up at his workplace with an oxygen mask over his face and dragging an oxygen tube. In a video that has since gone viral the middle-aged man can be heard saying that he was denied leave by his seniors, so he had to come to work, even though he was still recovering from a life-threatening condition. The video of Kumar leaning on his wife and his son dragging the oxygen tube have been doing the round online for over a week, sparking controversy on social media.

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