Sacculina carcini is a common species of barnacle that not only attaches itself to various species of crab, forcefully castrating males and turning them into females willing to care for and release their eggs.

Most barnacles spend their entire existence attaching themselves to underwater rocks or the bottoms of ships and just filtering food from water, but sacculina carcini has evolved into a parasite that seeks out unsuspecting crabs, usually green crabs, and becomes the bane of their existence. It all starts with a microscopic Sacculina larva that attaches itself to the most vulnerable part of the crab, the membrane at the base of one of its hairs, and injects a microscopic blob called ‘vermigon’ into the crustacean’s bloodstream. This blob then grows into a parasitic barnacle that uses its host both for protection and reproduction, often changing its sex to achieve its insidious goal.

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A farmer in India’s West Bengal state has been working on an unusual-looking house modeled after the famous RMS Titanic ship that sank after colliding with an iceberg.

Mintu Roy, a man from Bengal’s Darjeeling district, has been dreaming of living in a house shaped like the Titanic since he was a small child growing up in Kolkata. One year, during the Durga Puja festival, he was so impressed with a Titanic-shaped pandal – a temporary structure built to venerate gods during Hindu religious celebrations – that he decided to one day build his own house to resemble the iconic passenger liner. Today, at age 52, Roy still hasn’t given up on his dream and he is working hard to finish his already impressive Titanic house in Darjeeling.

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Joasia Zakrzewski, an accomplished ultramarathon runner from Australia, was stripped of her bronze medal and trophy won in a recent 50-mile race after organizers learned that she had used a car for a portion of the course.

47-year-old Joasia Zakrzewski finished third in the 2023 GB Ultras 50-mile (80km) race from Manchester to Liverpool on April 7 and even posed with her medal and trophy after crossing the finish line despite knowing full well that she had broken the rules of the competition. After analyzing GPX data, race organizers concluded that Zakrzewski had reached a speed of 35mph (56km/h) during a short section of the race, which made her faster than Usain Bolt, the fastest human in history. Upon interrogating race staff, witnesses and the runner herself, Joasia Zakrzewski was disqualified and stripped of her medal for riding in a friend’s car during the race.

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A travel agency in Argentina recently had the misfortune of being robbed twice in one day, once by a couple of aggressive robbers and then by the police officers that were supposed to catch the criminals, not copy them.

Last Wednesday, two armed robbers entered the offices of a travel agency in Buenos Aires and brutalized the staff before running off with hundreds of thousands of pesos. The victims called the police as soon as the assailants left the premises, but that proved to be a big mistake. In about 10 minutes, three police officers arrived on the scene, and after a brief interrogation of the staff regarding the robbery, they stormed off after the criminals. That’s when one of the agency’s employees noticed that a black bag containing about 4 million pesos that the robbers had missed was nowhere to be found…

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A Mexican influencer and businessman recently sparked controversy by offering to sell his embryos for $2 million each to people who can’t have children and want the guarantee of good-looking babies.

Poncho de Nigris, a Mexican television presenter, entrepreneur and influencer who originally became known nationwide after participating in the second season of hit reality show Big Brother Mexico, recently sparked controversy after claiming that he is considering selling two embryos he and his wife saved in case they ever wanted to have more children. The Mexican celebrity said that because the quality of the embryos is ‘guaranteed’ and they would be helping ‘improve the human race’, it wouldn’t be fair to just give them away. Instead, he reportedly plans to charge interested couples for $2 million for each of the two frozen embryos.

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A bold inmate managed to nonchalantly walk out of the Southwest Washington jail on Monday by impersonating another man who was due for release that day.

Brian Francisco Roman was in jail on a drug possession charge, but when he woke up Monday morning and heard a guard calling the name of a cellmate due for release that day, he saw an opportunity to regain his freedom. Since he and his sleeping cellmate looked similar, he decided impersonating him was worth a shot, and his bet paid off. Not only was Roman escorted out of the cell, but he was given his unnamed cellmate’s things, including his clothes, keys, and wallet, before being released. Guards only realized what had happened when the man due to be released woke up and started asking when he was going home.

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A Chinese couple visiting South Korea took revenge on the Airbnb host who refused to cancel their booking by using over 120 tonnes of water as well as thousands of dollars worth of gas, electricity and other utilities.

A Seoul Airbnb owner recently experienced a nightmare scenario in which guests went out of their way to waste as much water, electricity, and gas as possible during their stay. It all started when a Chinese couple booked a stand-alone villa in Seoul on Airbnb for 25 days without checking its location in the South Korean capital. When they arrived and realized the place was in the outer suburbs, they decided to contact the owner and ask for a refund, claiming that traveling to and from the city center was too inconvenient. However, the host refused, arguing that the booking had been confirmed and the payment made in full. The couple seemed to accept the situation, but they were secretly plotting to make the host pay…

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Police in Russia recently arrested a woman who reportedly dressed a cat in thick baby clothing in order to look like an innocent young mother and traffic dangerous drugs.

It’s a well-documented fact that drug traffickers come up with all sorts of ingenious techniques to move their products undisturbed. We’ve written about drugs diluted in women’s breast implants, or concealed in hollowed-out coffee beans, but these methods pale in comparison to that used by a young Russian woman trying to conceal packets of methamphetamines in the city of Nizhny Tagil. According to police spokeswoman Irina Volk, the unnamed woman was spotted walking hand in hand with a little girl and pushing a stroller with what looked like a baby inside. It’s unclear whether police were tipped off about the woman, or they simply noticed something off about her, but neither she nor her baby were what they seemed.

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A Vietnamese architecture student and diehard fan of The Dark Knight spent six months building his very own Batpod with the help of a team of friends.

Born in 1998, Nguyen Dac Chung was just a child when Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight hit cinemas, but the movie made such a big impact on him that he grew up dreaming of one day driving his own Batmobile and Batpod on the streets of his native Hanoi. He fulfilled half of that dream in 2020, when he built a functional replica of the Tumbler, Batman’s impressive Batmobile from the Dark Knight series, and earlier this month he completed his goal by unveiling a cool DIY Batpod as well.

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As the name suggests, anti-climbing paint is a special type of security paint designed to deter criminals from trying to access a property. However, one can’t simply smear a fence with this stuff without legal consequences.

Anti-climbing paint is a non-drying coating that, once applied onto a surface, makes it virtually impossible for someone to climb that said surface. Once coated in anti-climbing paint, a surface remains slippery for a minimum of three years, retaining its protective properties in both hot and cold weather conditions. Anti-climbing paint is usually applied in thick 3mm layers and develops a glossy skin similar to that of regular paint, only beneath this skin, the paint is still wet, so once an intruder tries to climb a surface covered in it, the skin is breached and the wet coating makes scaling virtually any surface impossible.

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A Spanish extreme athlete who voluntarily isolated herself from the world by entering a cave in November 2021 recently emerged from her self-imposed exile after a record 500 days.

When female climber Beatriz Flamini entered an isolated cave in the Spanish region of Granada on November 21, 2021, the world was still in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia had not invaded Ukraine, and Elon Musk had not yet become the tzar at Twitter. Falmini was 48 years old when she entered the cave, but she had turned 50 by the time she stepped out of it and had no idea what had occurred in the outside world in the last 500 days. Although she did not make contact with any other humans, Beatriz was carefully observed by a team of scientists, including psychologists and speleologists, in what is considered a first-of-its-kind experiment.

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Chinese news media recently reported the story of an 11-year-old boy who rode his bicycle 130 kilometers (81 miles) in under 24 hours trying to reach his grandmother’s house after an argument with his mother.

After getting into an argument with his mother, an 11-year-old boy from Hangzhou, China’s Zhejiang Province, got on his bike determined to reach his grandmother’s house. He actually told his mother so during their fight, but she never actually believed him, because her mother lived about 140 kilometers (87 miles) away in Mejiang. She underestimated the boy’s determination, because he spent about 22 hours cycling day and night on busy roads and motorways trying to achieve his goal. He only stopped when his legs couldn’t carry him any longer, but by that point he had already covered an impressive distance of about 130 km.

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A Kenyan man recently made international news headlines after being caught taking part in a women’s chess tournament using a full burka as a disguise.

In what is considered a first for the Kenyan Chess Federation, a disciplinary committee is currently debating the proper punishment for a male player who disguised himself as a Muslim woman in an attempt to win a women’s chess tournament. 25-year-old Stanley Omondi was reportedly facing financial woes when he decided to try and get his hands on the £2,400 ($3,000) grand prize of a women’s chess tournament. To pull it off without attracting too much suspicion, the male chess player put on a black burka which only left his eyes and feet visible, and registered under the false name ‘Millicent Awour’. At first, organizers were none the wiser to the player’s gender, but it was his prowess at the game of chess that first drew their attention…

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A young man from China’s Sichuan province spent over 20 hours kneeling in front of his ex-girlfriend’s workplace hoping to convince her to take him back.

A lovesick man became the talk of Chinese social media this month after spending almost 21 hours kneeling outside his ex-girlfriend’s workplace in Dazhou City. The man reportedly started the extreme attempt to get back into his ex’s good graces at 1 pm on March 28 and remained on his knees until 10 am the next day, braving the rain, the cold, and the curious stares of passers-by. At first, no one really paid attention to the lone man kneeling on the street with a bouquet of red roses next to him, but as the hours passed, people started noticing him and asking what he was doing. Before long, a crowd had formed around him.

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Malaysian social media has been abuzz with the story of a young well-off couple who recently bought a Mercedes SUV as a present for their 5-year-old daughter to motivate her to go to school.

Earlier this month, Malaysian businesswoman Farhana Zahra posted a TikTok video asking her daughter, Fatima, what she wanted as a birthday present, to which the young girl answered that she wanted either a green Mercedes G Wagon or a BMW. In the same video, Farhana makes the girl promise that she will go to school if she gets what she wants and then they seal the deal with a pinky shake. Apparently, Farhana and her husband had been having problems convincing Fatima to go to school, because she hadn’t turned five yet, and they used this opportunity to persuade her. Just like our parents used to do back in the day…

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