Seeing Zhang Ziyu towering over her classmates at the Cultural East Road Primary School, in Jinan, China, it’s hard to believe that they are all in the sixth grade. The 11-year-old already measures 6ft 7in (210 cm), and many believe she is the tallest girl in the world.

Zhang’s parents are both former professional basketball players, and they are both over 2 meters tall, so it’s pretty clear that genetics played an important role in her physical development, but reaching 210 cm by age 11 is still very unusual. Zhang has always been taller than all the other children, and one of her colleagues remembers that in the first grade, she already stood at 1.6m (5ft 3in) tall. That’s already considerably taller than the average Chinese sixth-grade girl (4ft 6in or 1.38m).

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A young Christian missionary has been killed after venturing to North Sentinel Island, a protected island in the Indian Ocean home to a 30,000-year-old tribe known to aggressively repel outsiders, in order to “declare Jesus”.

27-year-old John Allen Chau is believed to have been killed by a volley of arrows shot by members of the Sentinelese tribe shortly after encroaching on their remote island. He had been trying to make contact with the reclusive natives for years, and on Saturday he paddled to the island in a kayak, despite the warnings of several fishermen he had paid to take him close to it. According to eyewitnesses, Chau was hit by an arrow shortly after reaching the island, and his body was later dragged deeper inland and buried. In a journal he left fishermen before venturing to North Sentinel Island, the young explorer wrote that he knew he risked being killed but that it was “worth it to declare Jesus to these people”.

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The mayor of Parajito, a town in northern Colombia, recently announced a curfew forbidding the transit and gathering of minors under the age of 17 in public places between 7 in the evening and 5 in the morning, to protect them from evil spirits that have allegedly been spreading through the popular messaging app WhatsApp.

Since the beginning of this week, authorities in the Catholic town of Parajito have reported at least 14 cases of teenagers exhibiting strange behavior, including threats of jumping off bridges, self lacerations, convulsions, fainting and unexplained changes in their voices. Like most youths these days, all of the victims were reportedly using the popular messaging app WhatsApp, and rumors started going around that evil spirits spreading through the app were responsible for the unusual behavior. To protect the children from themselves, mayor Inocencio Perez decided to enforce a curfew that allows youths under 17 to leave their homes only under the supervision of their parents or custodians.

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In an effort to spare her young daughter from being ostracized by other children for not having a father, a Japanese single mother made the controversial decision to hire an actor who has been posing as the girl’s father for the last 10 years.

Megumi was only a baby when her parents separated and he father disappeared from her life. The mother, Asako, remembers that the girl started asking where her father was very early, but that her father’s absence didn’t seem like a big deal until she was about 10-years-old. That’s when Asako noticed a change in her daughter’s behavior; she stopped talking to her, became withdrawn, and eventually stopped going to school. Her mother soon learned that she wasn’t just blaming herself for her father’s absence, but she had also become a victim of bullying at school, as it often happens with children of single parents in Japan. Asako was heartbroken, and after appealing to Megumi’s teachers for help, she also decided to give her daughter the thing she wanted most, even if it meant lying to her.

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A young university student who ate only instant noodles for three weeks straight in order to save money for Singles Day – China’s version of Black Friday – ended spending all of her savings on medical bills after her unusual diet made her sick.

Instant noodles are standard fare for many university students. They’re cheap, easy to cook and they fill your stomach, but they’re definitely not the most nutritious meal. One young woman recently learned the hard way that surviving on instant noodles alone is not the smartest thing you can do, even if it means saving some money in the short run.

Hong Jia first made news headlines in China at the start of November, when it was revealed that she had been eating only instant noodles since October 15, in order to save a bit of money for Singles Day, the largest online and offline shopping day in the world. In a viral Pear video, Jia said that she had managed to save 749 yuan ($108) by switching to the ultra cheap diet, money that she planned to spend on the November 11 shopping extravaganza.

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A Changsha man recently made news headlines in China after it was reported that he became hooked on cold medication 10 years ago and has taken over 30,000 pills since then just to satisfy his addiction.

The 48-year-old man, surnamed Wang, was featured in a viral Pear video in which he explains that he first bought an unspecified brand of cold medicine about a decade ago, to treat a headache. He took a couple of them and they were very effective, so every time he felt even a slight discomfort he always popped some more pills, which made him feel a lot better. The problem was that in time, he had to increase the dose to get the same results, and he reached a point where he took between 8 to 12 of these pills every day just to function normally. In recent years, the man’s addiction to the pills had gotten so bad that if he went too long without taking some, he would start to get melancholic, then become inexplicably irritated. He also experienced physical symptoms, like headaches and a general feeling of discomfort.

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Looking at the new running shoes unveiled by Spanish start-up FBR you would be forgiven for thinking it incomplete, but the missing heel in the sole is actually by design.

Athletic trainer Franc Beneyto came up with the idea for a heelless running shoe five years ago, after reading the book “Running with the Kenyans”, by Adharanand Finn, a journalist and amateur runner who lived for a few months in Kenya with athletes and coaches to investigate why they were able to run more, faster and get injured less frequently than others. In the book, Finn wrote that Kenyans had refined a natural running technique that didn’t require the support of the heel, but instead relied on the Achilles tendon, plantar arch, soleus and calf muscle. That got him thinking, and one day he just cut off the heel of a running shoe to see what running in it would feel like.

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Weddings are generally considered personal events reserved for family and friends, but some couples in India are more than happy to have total strangers from all over the world attend their traditional weddings, for a fee.

Paying hundreds of dollars to attend the wedding of two total strangers in a foreign country may seem strange to some, but according to JoinMyWedding, a company specializing in wedding tourism, it’s “the ultimate cultural immersion” for tourists looking to experience as many elements of Indian culture in the shortest time possible. Clients get to put on traditional Indian clothing, taste exotic food, witness and take part in beautiful wedding customs, and soak up the unique atmosphere. As for the couples getting married, they get to share the happiest day of their lives not just with family and friends, “but with the world” and make some extra money in the process.

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Colombian singer Maluma is one of the world’s most popular reggaeton stars, but while millions of people love listening to his hits, one jailed Mexican official claims he has been driven crazy by Maluma’s music after police “tortured” him by playing loud reggaeton non-stop for 10 days straight.

Gilberto Aguirre Garza, the former director of the Attorney General’s Office in the Mexican state of Veracruz, was jailed in April for his alleged involvement in the concealment and alteration of evidence relating to the mass burial of 13 human bodies. On January 19, 2016, the remains of 19 victims of enforced disappearance allegedly perpetrated by public servants of the Public Security Secretariat of the State were discovered in a place called La Barranca de La Aurora. However, prosecutors claimed that Garza instructed personnel under his command to report the finding of only 6 bodies, a charge that he has always denied. The jailed official’s lawyer recently told reporters that, in an effort to force his client to admit to the crime and denounce other public servants, the current Verracruz Governor and the state’s Attorney General have been subjecting Garza to music torture.

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A 22-year-old female fan of the hit TV show “The Vampire Diaries” who considered herself the real-life vampire heroine Elena Gilbert was recently sentenced to two and a half years in prison after stabbing a man that she allegedly considered a werewolf.

The bizarre attack occurred in the Russian city of Novosibirsk, back in February. Ekaterina Tirskaya, a fan of supernatural-themed video games and TV shows, met her unnamed victim on social media, and, after hitting it off online, the two decided to meet up in person as well. They went for a date and when it came time to call it a night, the man reportedly asked Ekaterina if she wanted to come to his place for a nightcap. She accepted, and as it often happens in such cases, the two ended up spending the night together. But things got weird the following morning, as the man later told police that the woman he woke up next to was very different than the one he had bedded. And by different, he meant violent vampire out for blood.

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Yoshitaka Sakurada, Japan’s new cybersecurity minister, recently left the whole world dumbfounded after admitting that he has never used a computer.

Sakurada made the stunning admission during a question and answer session with Japan’s Lower House cabinet committee. When asked about things like the power grid and malware, the newly appointed cybersecurity minister seemed overwhelmed, and at one point said that USB was “basically never used” in Japan’s nuclear power stations, which led many to believe that he didn’t understand the technology at all. Most of his replies were met with laughter from the other politicians, but no one actually expected him to casually admit that he had never even used a computer before.

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The Maltese city of Zebbug, on the island of Gozo, recently welcomed its newly appointed archbishop in a very unusual way – having the prelate ride in a convertible Porsche Boxter S pulled by dozens of young children.

A video of the unusual welcome that took place on Sunday went viral both in Malta and abroad, with most viewers declaring themselves outraged by the sight of a high-ranking member of the church riding in a luxury sports car pulled by young children dressed in white. Footage showed Archbishop Ġwann Sultana standing up and waving from the grey Porsche Boxter S, as dozens of children pulled the sports car through the streets of Zebbug, to the local church.

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Plastic surgery is more popular than it’s ever been, but women looking for a less invasive way of getting a perfect nose are turning to a special wax that lets them mold their noses into the desired shape.

Microcrystaline wax has been used in Asia – particularly in China – for a while now, but it has recently been gaining popularity in the western world as well thanks to makeup enthusiasts and influencers showing off their temporary nose jobs on Instagram. Videos of women applying bits of white, clay-like material on their nose to drastically adjust its shape, and later deconstructing their work have been going viral on the popular social network lately, leaving people scratching their heads.

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“Relax We Post” is a new service offered by Swiss hotel chain Ibis Hotels to guests who want to take a break from social media and enjoy their holiday, but still keep their accounts updated. All they need to do is share their Instagram login details with the hotel’s “Instagram sitters” who will post photos and stories on their behalf and even reply to comments.

Instead of focusing all their attention on taking cool photos to post on Instagram, social media addicts staying at one of the 17 Ibis hotels in Zurich and Geneva will be able to enjoy their vacation while Instagram sitters do all their work for them. For the Relax We Post service, the Swiss hotel chain teamed up with  with over 10 well-known influencers, including Anna Maradan, Cristina Gheiceanu, Pascal Erband and Elay Leuthold, who will login into guests’ Instagram accounts and post high-quality photos, cool Stories as well as reply to comments.

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Pinocchio may be just a children’s fairy tale, but Spanish scientists at the University of Granada recently investigated the so-called ‘Pinocchio effect’ and found that our noses don’t grow when we tell a lie, but actually shrink a bit.

Dr Emilio Gómez Milán and his team developed a lie detector test that used thermography to tell if people were lying, and found that whenever participants in their research were being untruthful, the temperature of the tip of their nose dropped up to 1.2 degrees Celsius, while the temperature of their forehead increased up to 1.5C. Scientist also found that drop in temperature at nose level actually caused it to slightly shrink, although the difference is undetected by the human eye.

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