Zheng Jiajia, a 31-year-old artificial intelligence expert from Hangzhou, China, recently made headlines after marrying 1-year-old Yingying, a “female” robot that he built himself.

Zheng graduated from Zhejiang University in 2011 with a master’s degree in artificial intelligence, and spent 3 years working for Chinese tech giant Huawei, before joining Hangzhou’s Dream Town, a base for internet and tech startups, to work on artificial intelligence. Last year, he started working on a smart humanoid robot that would end up becoming his wife.

Named Yingying, the female robot can allegedly say a few simple words, and is capable of recognizing Chinese characters and images. She weighs about 30 kilograms and is modeled according to the young engineer preferences in women.

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For most people discovering the secret to eternal life, or reaching heaven and living forever in a blissful afterlife is the ultimate goal, but for some, concepts like life without end and infinity are apparently terrifying to the point where they cannot lead a normal life. These people suffer from a little-known and even less talked-about condition called “apeirophobia”.

You won’t find many scientific or medical information about apeirophobia online. It doesn’t even have its own Wikipedia entry, and popular medical information websites like Mayo Clinic or WebMD have no mention of it either. But when it comes to anecdotal evidence of its existence, the hundreds of forum threads, social media posts and blog entries by people sharing stories of their struggle with the fear of eternal life or infinite space, and asking for help in coping with anxiety, sleeplessness and depression, are enough to convince anyone that apeirophobia is more than a made-up medical condition.

Unlike other phobias, aperirophobia is a lot harder to explain, which is why most people tend to keep it a secret. It’s one thing to tell that you’re afraid of snakes, or heights, and another that you’re afraid of living forever or of the infinity of the universe. While most people find the fear of death perfectly understandable and even relatable, the fear of infinity and eternity is apparently much harder to grasp.

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Proposing with a diamond ring is nice, but it’s been done millions of times, so, in a n effort to be more original, a Chinese man decided to pop the big question to his sweetheart with a different kind of rock – a 33-tonne “meteorite”.

Liu Fei, a young man from Urumqi, China, recently made national headlines after proposing to his girlfriend with a large boulder that he claimed was a “33-tonne meteorite”. On March 14, Liu took his beloved to a public square, where he got down on one knee in a heart made of rose petals and asked her to marry him. As soon as she answered “yes”, a couple of the man’s friends unveiled a strange boulder strategically placed in the middle of the square. Apparently, this wasn’t just any rock, but a meteorite that Liu had bought for 1 million yuan ($145,000), money he had originally saved for a new apartment.

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Tacos are generally low-cost fare in Mexico – you can buy one from street stalls for as low as 10 pesos (¢50) – so how can one cost as much as a fully optioned family car?

Juan Licerio Alcala, the executive chef at the Grand Velas Los Cabos Resort, a luxury vacation destination in Baja California, and the creator of the world’s most expensive taco, says that the mind-blowing $25,000 price tag of this delicacy is justified by “the technique and the harmony that you will lift from the plate”. That’s a pretty vague explanation, but he assures those interested in sampling his creation that “it’s worth it”.

But if you don’t feel like taking Licerio at his word with 25 grand on the line, maybe the list of ingredients will give you a better idea of what you can expect from the world’s most expensive taco. To make the opulent dish, the Mexican chef takes a corn tortilla speckled with 24 carat gold flakes, which he then fills with Kobe beef, langoustines, Almas Beluga caviar and black truffle brie cheese. Then, the taco is dressed with a salsa based on Morita chiles and Kopi Luwak coffee, before being sprinkled with some edible gold flakes.

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If you thought your grandpa was cool for his age, you’ve probably never heard of Bernhard Enste, the legendary “techno grandpa” of Berlin. When other 68-year-olds turn in for the night, he’s just getting ready to hit the hottest techno clubs in the German city and party until dawn with kids young enough to be his grand-children. They worship him, by the way, as he represents their hope for a happy old age.

Bernhard Enste wasn’t always the techno grandpa. He was born into a Catholic family in Mainz, and grew up dreaming of one day becoming a priest and converting the Eskimos to Christianity. That didn’t work out as planned, and he became a carpenter instead. At age 40 he got tired of working with wood and became an artist. Ten years later, his only son succumbed to cancer and his marriage fell apart. He felt that he needed to get out of Mainz, so he moved to Berlin, where he discovered the techno scene.

Growing up with The Beatles and Santana, techno always sounded more like noise than music to Bernhard, but all that changed when some friends invited him to a rave one night. The bass, the flashing lights and the energy of the crowd appealed to him instantly and clubbing became his thing. Today, he spends most his nights in Berlin’s many techno clubs, where he dances until the late hours of the morning.

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President Donald Trump has been called many things ever since he announced his candidacy for President of the United States, and according to one California woman, you can add one more thing to the list – homewrecker. She claims to have left her husband after feeling betrayed by his decision to support Trump during the Presidential elections.

73-year-old Gayle McCormick, a retired prison guard from California who describes herself as a “Democrat leaning toward socialist”, says that she always knew that her husband of 22 years leaned right politically, but she still felt “betrayed” when he casually mentioned that he was going to vote for Donald Trump, during lunch with some friends. She recently described the revelation as a “deal breaker” that made her re-evaluate her marriage after over two decades. It turns out that the man’s support for Donald Trump was more than she could put up with, so she left him.

“It totally undid me that he could vote for Trump,” McCormick said. “I felt like I had been fooling myself, It opened up areas between us I had not faced before. I realized how far I had gone in my life to accept things I would have never accepted when I was younger.”

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Zarko Hrgic, a former steelworker from Bosnia, has been living in a small riverside cave near the town of Zenica for nearly a decade. He survives on food picked out of dumpsters and leftovers donated by kind souls as he waits to turn 65 and collect his due pension so he can hopefully turn his life around.

In his youth, Zarko worked as a steelworker in Zenica, but decided to try his luck in Germany after his marriage broke down 30 years ago. He worked odd jobs for many years, but 10 years ago he was deported back to Bosnia for staying and working in Germany illegally. Unfortunately, Zarko’s apartment had been destroyed during the Bosnian War (1992 – 1995) so he had no home to come back to. With no savings to buy a new place, and no one to turn to for help, Hrgic eventually ended up in a small mountainside cave on the bank of Babina River that had once been used by miners to store explosives. It was meant to be a temporary arrangement, but he has been living there for 10 years.

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Japan has one of the highest adoption rates in the world, with over 80,000 legal adoptions recorded every year. Yet when it comes to adopting children, the Asian country is lagging way behind most developed countries. That’s because around 98% of Japanese adoptees are bright young men in their 20s and 30s.

At the same time, while studies have shown that family-controlled businesses are generally unsustainable over long periods of time –  mostly due to the fact that business acumen and intelligence are only partially inherited – it’s interesting to see that not only are a third of Japanese corporations family-run, but they are also clearly outperforming professionally managed companies in almost every way. Statistics show that family firms are more profitable, have a higher market valuation and increased sales compared to their rivals. Even more curious is that giants like Suzuki, Toyota or Matsui Securities have managed to keep it all in the family for over a hundred years, and other family businesses for even longer than that.

But what does the remarkable success of family business have to do with the high rate of adult adoption, right? Well, in Japan at least, these two curiosities are very closely linked. Prior to the Second World War, civil code in Japan decreed family wealth could only be passed down through male lines, traditionally to the first born son. So families with no male heirs or with sons deemed unsuitable to take over the family business turned to adoption, but not the kind most of us are used to. Instead of simply adopting a baby or a young boy, they adopted young men who displayed the intelligence and knowledge of business required to ensure that their name and legacy endured until the next generation. And while the law no longer prohibits people from passing down their fortune to female heirs, the age-old tradition of electing a ‘mukoyoshi’ (or ‘adopted son-in-law’) is still very popular in Japan.

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Despite living under the same roof and raising their three children together, a Japanese husband hasn’t spoken a single word to his wife in the last 20 years.

No marriage is perfect, and spouses sometimes give each other the silent treatment when they’re upset. But either they go their separate ways or try to patch things up and move on. But not Okou Katayama. For the past two decades he has only answered his wife Yumi’s attempts at making conversation with occasional nods and grunts. Their unusual relationship was revealed by their 18-year-old son Yoshiki, who appealed to a Japanese TV show to help him fix things, as he had never heard his parents talk to each other.

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In India, it is expected that the bride’s family organize and especially pay for the wedding, so when a young woman’s father (the main bread earner) dies, she can almost certainly forget about having a wedding, especially if she comes from a poor family. Most often than not, widowed mothers simply don’t have the means to marry their daughters. That’s where Indian real-estate tycoon Mahesh Savani comes in.

Ever since 2008, Mr. Savani has organized weddings for over 700 fatherless brides, not only paying for the event itself, but also giving each one of his new “daughters” a substantial dowry  (gold, jewelry, furniture, home appliances, etc.) worth around 400,000 rupees ($5,900). At each wedding, the successful businessman also steps up to play the role of their father and perform their ‘kanyadaan’ – the traditional ritual of giving away the bride. From that moment on, the girls become his daughters.

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Leading artificial intelligence expert David Levy recently said that he expects human-robot marriages to become commonplace by 2050, and the recently revealed romantic relationship between a French woman and a robot she 3D-printed herself seems to confirm the beginning of this trend.

The first time I saw this story circulating online, I was almost convinced it was just a prank, not because it seems impossible to believe, but because the media tends to blow things out of proportion to attracts as many eyes as possible. However, this one appears to be legit. The woman in question, known only as Lilly, or by her Twitter handle @LillyInMoovator, describes herself as a “proud robosexual” and told News.com.au via email that she is attracted only to robots and actually dislikes physical contact with human flesh.

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After failing to deliver on the contract he had signed with Russian online gift store Pich Shop, a 21-year-old entrepreneur agreed to be auctioned off to the highest bidder and marry a complete stranger for at least one year, in order to avoid being sued.

A week ago, a strange listing showed up on PichShop.ru – a young man named Aleksandr Kramarenko available for marriage, with a 1 year warranty. The “product” was listed as “in stock” and featured a detailed description – including age, height, weight, zodiac sign and interests – and photos (both dressed and topless). The listing mentioned that Aleksandr was going to be auctioned off to be married to the highest bidder, and invited women no older than 35 to bid for the chance to become his wife for at least one year. The minimum bid was set at 10,000 rubles.

This all sounds a bit too corny to be true, and, to be fair, such pranks are not exactly uncommon around the holidays. Some of them are actually pretty elaborate and end up attracting a lot of media attention, which translates into free publicity for companies, but this particular story seems legit.

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‘Mistress killer’, ‘China’s top ladies’ detective’ or ‘Terminator of extramarital affairs’ are just some of the nicknames that Zhang Yufen has earned during the 15 years she has dedicated to helping cheated wives gather evidence on their husbands’ affairs and helping them exact revenge on their mistresses.

Zhang Yufen’s war on adultery is fueled by her personal experience. During the late 90’s her husband, who worked in the district taxation bureau in the city of Xi’an, started having an affair and eventually told her that he was seeing someone else and didn’t want her anymore. He took their most valuable possessions, cleaned out their joint bank account and he was gone. The news was devastating and Zhang remembers curling up on the couch and crying for a week. But after the news finally sunk in, she decided that the only way to receive justice was to track down her husband and his mistress and gather evidence about their affair. Little did she know that she would spend the rest of her life doing the same thing for other cheated wives.

Zhang spent five long years tracking down her husband multiple times, as he moved to different locations every time he caught her snooping around. But in 2007, after gathering enough evidence about his infidelity, she was finally granted a divorce and became entitled to a payout from her former spouse. At that point, she had already made a name for herself as a detective helping other wives expose their cheating husbands and their mistresses.

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29-year-old Johanna Watkins suffers from an extremely rare condition which makes allergic to literally hundreds of things, including the scent of her husband. For the past year, she has been living alone in a specially-built “safe zone” of her house, and claims that every times she leaves this space her body “goes into attack” mode.

Johanna met her husband Scott five years ago, at Hope Academy, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she worked as a first grade teacher Scott as a second grade teacher. They got married in 2013 and started making plans about their life together, but just two years into their marriage, the allergies that Johanna had suffered from all her life started getting considerably worse. At first they though it was just food allergies, and changed their diet, but that didn’t help. In 2015, she was diagnosed with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), a rare genetic disorder that causes her body to develop life-threatening anaphylactic reactions to virtually everything.

MCAS causes  mast cells, which release chemicals that tell our immune system how to react to various stimuli, to build up and go haywire. Basically Johanna’s mast cells release the wrong chemicals, to the wrong place, at the wrong time. The cells react to all sorts of triggers, releasing chemicals that overwhelm the body, leading to anaphylaxis. Unfortunately, the condition was discovered just nine years ago, so little is known about it.

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The Yangtze River Bridge in Nanjing, China, is one of the most popular suicide spots in the world, and also the place where one man has spent all his weekends and holidays over the last 13 years trying to convince people out of ending their lives. He has so far been able to save over 300 people.

Chen Si claims that he can approach and talk people out of jumping off the bridge, because he knows how they feel. Many of those who attempt to commit suicide on the Yangtze River Bridge are not actually from Nanjing, but migrant workers living far away from home. Mr. Chen was like them once, a migrant disappointed with his life, living far away from his family. But then he met an old man who offered him optimistic advice and helped him look at life in a positive way. Unfortunately, not longer after they met, the old man’s sons started arguing about their inheritance, and he got so upset that he stopped eating and eventually died. It was this tragic event that inspired Chen to help troubled souls overcome their difficulties and persuade them that life is worth living. He always believed that if he had visited the old man sooner, as he had planned to do, he might have convinced him of that as well. “What could be more important than life itself?” he asks.

So every weekend since 2003, Chen Si has been traveling 25 kilometers from his home to the Yangtze Bridge and patrolling it for hours, either on foot or on his scooter, looking for people who look like they might be thinking of jumping into the river. He pays particularly close attentions to loners staring into the muddy waters below. Chen says he has become an expert at spotting people contemplating suicide. “It is very easy to recognize,” he says. “A person walks without a soul.”

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