The blue-tongued skink, a lizard native to the Australian continent, has a rather bizarre defense mechanism – it sticks its bright-blue tongue out to predators and they actually run away, sometimes.

A subspecies of Tiliqua scincoides, the blue-tongued skink is one of only five animals known to have blue tongues, the other being the chow chow dog breed, the giraffe, the Impala, and the Okapi. However, it is the only one known for using this distinct physical feature to intimidate predators. When a blue-tongued skink feels threatened, it will start sticking out its blue tongue rapidly, and the contrasting blue tongue against the pink background of its mouth will actually make some animals think twice before attacking it. It sounds weird, but there is a logical explanation behind this unique defense strategy.

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Inishmore, the largest of Ireland’s Aran Islands, is home to a remarkable natural wonder, a rectangular pool cut so straight into limestone that it looks man-made.

Also known as “The Wormhole” or “The Serpent’s Lair”, Poll na bPéist is a natural water basin with an edge length of approx. 10 by 25 meters within a stone formation. It can only be accessed by walking along the cliffs south of the ancient site Dún Aonghasa, but in recent years it has become famous for hosting the renowned Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series. The most fascinating thing about Poll na bPéist is its remarkable rectangular shape, which has led many to question its natural origins and sparked several theories, including that it is the work of an ancient civilization.

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A Romanian man was recently saved by doctors after cutting his wrist with an angle grinder because he was convinced he had colon cancer by simply reading about his symptoms online.

The bizarre incident took place on Saturday, in the Romanian city of Botosani. The unnamed man had been depressed about colon pain he had been experiencing for a while, but his wife didn’t suspect just how desperate he had become. At one point, he told his spouse that he was going into the outhouse to get some firewood for their boiler, but he had more sinister plans. A few minutes later, the woman received a text from her husband telling her that he was sorry and that she had been a good wife. Luckily, the woman immediately realized something was wrong and ran to the outhouse, where she found the man with an angle grinder in one hand and his other hand almost severed completely…

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The so-called ‘Guyiang White House’ is a gigantic structure located in the posh Huaguoyuan Wetland Park area of Guiyang City, in China’s Guizhou Province. It has gone viral as China’s largest mansion, but you can’t believe everything you read online…

Featuring an architectural style usually observed in European palaces and museums, the Guiyang White House has become one of the most iconic sights in the Chinese city of Guiyang. Although many have described it as ‘kitsch’, ‘over-the-top’, and overly opulent’, there is no denying the eye-catching appeal of this megalithic structure, both during the day and at night, when it is illuminated by countless light installations. The structure got its name because of its white exterior and Western architectural influences, but when it comes to size, it actually dwarfs its Washington namesake. The entire complex, including the artificial pond in front of the edifice, is said to cover an area of ​​18.3 million square meters.

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Every year, in late autumn, thousands of people flock to Bangye–ri, a village in Gyeongsang, South Korea, to witness the beauty of a majestic 860-year-old ginkgo biloba tree.

The secular Wonju Bangye-ri Ginkgo Tree is a national monument of South Korea famous for its impressive crown which currently covers a perimeter of around 17 meters. At around 32 meters tall (104ft), it is not even the Asian country’s tallest ginkgo tree, but the way its branches are spread out makes it one of the most visually impressive trees on Earth. In South Korea, the Bangye-ri Ginkgo Tree is often called the world’s most beautiful tree.

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A 63-year-old Chinese man who only started learning ballet a decade ago has gone viral on social media as a living example that you are never too old to follow your dreams.

Liu Ziqing has been a fan of ballet for as long as he can remember. He fell in love with it as a little boy, after watching The Red Detachment of Women ballet show in the early 1960s, more than 10 times, but he never really got the chance to practice it himself. Growing up in a poor family in a village near Baotou, the largest city in Northern China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region, his main focus was always on helping his family and putting food on the table. Dancing was a luxury he could not afford. He ended up becoming a farmer but also worked as a street cleaner in order to make ends meet. But he never got over his love for ballet, and at age 53, he decided to become a ballet dancer.

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Matthew Lani, a young South African man with over 3oo,000 followers on TikTok, was recently arrested for allegedly posing as a doctor and sharing medical advice without having any medical experience.

27-year-old Matthew Bogani Lani rose to internet fame when he started claiming that he was one of the youngest doctors in South Africa. He often told his followers that he was somewhat of a wunderkind, skipping several high-school grades entirely to graduate at age 16, before enrolling at Wits University to study medicine. He often filmed himself patrolling through hospitals dressed in white and wearing a stethoscope around his neck, claiming to be on his way to see patients and even dishing out medical advice to his followers, or selling them medication. He wouldn’t be the first doctor to do this in order to build an online following, but the problem was that Lani wasn’t a doctor at all, he just posed as one.

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Ben Miller is the world’s only fly cast painter. Instead of a regular paintbrush, he dips his special flies in paint, attaches them to a fly rod and flings them against a canvas from dozens of feet away.

Fly fishing and painting don’t really seem like a match made in heaven, but then again, you probably haven’t seen Washington-based artist Ben Miller at work either. He is regarded as the world’s first and only fly cast painter, meaning he uses a fly rod and the art of fly casting to create thought-provoking artworks designed to raise awareness about the importance of preserving the world’s rivers. Growing up in central Washington state, Ben was introduced to the beautiful rivers of the region early on in his life, learning to fish from his father. As a young adult, he got the idea to combine his love for fly fishing with his passion for art in a unique art form that has come to be known as fly cast painting.

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Safety Shot, a new blood alcohol detox drink set to launch later this year, promises to reduce blood alcohol content in less than an hour after consumption and make hangovers a thing of the past.

The global market for hangover cures is growing faster than ever, with experts predicting that it will exceed $6 billion by 2030. A fast-growing market usually means cutthroat competition, and that is certainly the case here, with hundreds of startups fighting to establish themselves as major players. One of the most promising companies in the field is Safety Shot (formerly Jupiter Wellness), whose upcoming product, set to launch in Q4 of 2023, has been described as “the biggest disruption in the drink market” to date and “the epitome of beverage innovation”. Its patented formula is said to be able to slash a person’s blood alcohol content in half in just 30 minutes, giving them a general feeling of well-being and reducing the risk of alcohol poisoning and even hangovers.

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Green Ant Gin is a unique gin made by an Adelaide distillery that is infused with green ants for an extra bit of citrus flavor and a hint of coriander.

Green ants have been a source of protein for Australia’s aborigines for thousands of years, and even though bugs are yet to catch on as food in the modern world, these little critters’s neon abdomens can still be used as a flavorful ingredient. Adelaide-based food company Something Wild came up with the idea of using the ants for their natural citrus flavor in a spirit that has won multiple awards since its launch in 2017. Created in collaboration with the Adelaide Hills Distillery, Green Ant Gin is made with Boobiala (a native species of juniper) as well as other botanicals like finger lime, strawberry gum, lemon myrtle, and pepper berry, but its secret ingredient is green ants, as evidenced by the handful of ants floating in every bottle.

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Security guards at a shopping mall in Shanghai, China recently discovered a young man who had allegedly been living comfortably under a staircase for over six months.

Shopping malls are busy places, so keeping an eye on every suspicious-looking individual can be challenging even for the most attentive security guards, but failing to notice someone living in a shopping mall continuously for about half a year is a little suspicious in itself. And yet, that seems to have happened at a busy mall in Shanghai, where a young man managed to remain undiscovered for more than six months while living quite comfortably. According to a White Deer video that went viral, the unnamed young man had installed a sleeping tent under a secluded staircase in the building, along with a small desk and an office chair. He charged his laptop and mobile phone from the shopping mall electric outlets and managed to keep a very low profile.

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It’s rare for any dog to reach 100 kilograms, let alone a stray one, but Krugets, a stray dog living in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod, has become so fat that he can barely get up.

The Great Dane, the world’s largest dog breed, weighs between 300 (136 kg) and 400 pounds (181 kg), but for a midsize stray dog to weigh just under 220 pounds (100 kg) is somewhat of an oddity. Volunteers in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, recently found a stray dog so fat that he howled in pain every night, and barely managed to get up on all fours because of the unbearable joint pain. The dog had to be placed on a large scale by a number of people, and his weight reportedly stunned everyone. Krugets weighed a whopping 99.9 kilograms (220 lbs) and no one could understand how a stray could become so heavy.

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Kuronushi is a young Japanese artist who specializes in shadow art. He puts together hundreds of pieces of cardboard that, when viewed from different angles, project detailed shadows.

You’ve probably seen shadow art – expertly arranged objects that project certain shadows – before, but Kuronushi’s creations are on another level. He glues together hundreds of pieces of cardboard to create themed dioramas that project a shadow artwork when light is cast on them from a certain angle, but there is actually more to these rudimentary-looking cardboard installations. When Kuronushi turns his little dioramas, the shadows they cast change into related portraits. For example, for a scene inspired by the Wizarding World of Harry Potter featuring a broom-riding Hogwarts student and a half-moon, the installation also casts a detailed portrait of Harry Potter himself when seen from a certain angle.

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An American woman is suing luxury hotel chain Ritz-Carlton for reportedly delivering a bottle of water that had been contaminated with human semen by one of its employees.

The woman and her husband – referred to as Jane and John Doe in the lawsuit – visited the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Half Moon Bay, California, last November, but their comfortable four-night stay turned into a nightmare one evening when the wife requested a few bottles of drinking water. After they were delivered by a member of the hotel staff, Jane Doe put one of the bottles on the nightstand next to her bed and fell asleep without taking a drink from it. Later that night, she woke up, took a swig of water, and immediately realized that something wasn’t right. The water had a weird taste that she horrifyingly recognized…

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Scientists at South Korea’s Chung-Ang University have created an ultra-light exosuit that can help runners cover short distances faster.

They may not be mainstream yet, but exoskeletons have been a part of our world for a while now. We’ve seen some that make carrying heavy loads a breeze, and others that help physically disabled people move around with ease. But wearable technology that helps people run faster has been pretty rare, especially in the super-light form recently presented by scientists at Chung-Ang University’s School of Mechanical Engineering in South Korea. They created a contraption that only weighs around 2.5 kg (5.5lbs) but can help the average person run a 200-meter sprint almost a second faster than without the suit.

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