A Venezuelan man was recently arrested for allegedly implanting plastic lollipop sticks under the skin of dozens of people and tricking them into thinking that they were advanced contraceptive devices.

38-year-old Jose Daniel Lopez stands accused of tricking at least 25 women into paying him to implant simple lollipop sticks under their skin as contraceptives, thus causing some of them to become pregnant. Lopez, who had no medical qualifications, worked in health centers in La Victoria and Maracay, Venezuela, after falsifying his medical degree. He did have some notion of medical procedures, as he performed the subdermal implants himself, claiming they were “Implanon” an actual contraceptive procedure that involves small plastic rods being implanted under the skin of the upper arm.

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Deep in the Tengger Desert of Inner Mongolia, surrounded by sand dunes as far as the eye can see, lies the world’s loneliest post office, a surprisingly bustling outpost of human connection.

Measuring only 15 square meters, the wooden post office of Tengger Desert is not much to look at, but that’s ok, it doesn’t get too many visitors anyway. Besides, after being abandoned for over 35 years, it actually doesn’t look half bad. Thanks to the efforts of a few intrepid individuals who learned about the existence of an old abandoned desert post office by mistake, it has been given a new lease on life, and thanks to the magic of the internet, it has actually become quite a busy operation.

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In an attempt to get the coveted six-pack abs in time for the summer holidays, a man who hates going to the beach got himself a hyper-realistic six-pack tattoo.

It’s the same old story every spring. You try flexing your abs in the mirror only to find them covered by a thick layer of fat that you’ve been trying your hardest to ignore for months. You jump on the scale and are shocked to see you’ve put on a few pounds since last summer and with only a few weeks left until the beach season, you start to panic. It’s time to hit the gym, hard, but that’s just such a chore. If only there was a way to permanently turn that flabby belly into the chiseled physique of a bodybuilder. Well, as long as you’re not afraid of needles, there’s one goofy trick you may want to try.

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Ever wish you could earn money by turning your daily life into a reality show that anyone could tune in to watch from anywhere around the world? It turns out you actually can.

SpiedLife is a growing international docu-reality platform that essentially allows people to turn their lives into reality shows with the help of webcams. If you have no problem installing a few webcams in your home and broadcasting your life to total strangers 24 hours a day, your average life could become the next Big Brother. SpiedLife allows streamers to stay in touch with their audience through chat rooms, track their channel’s popularity, and pays them for sharing their lives on the platform. But in a time where privacy is being taken more seriously than ever, many think that SpiedLife could have a dark side.

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Dozens of people taking part in a funeral in Peru were left shocked after the woman being laid to rest allegedly started banging on the casket from the inside.

Late last month, Rosa Isabel Cespedes Callaca, a 36-year-old woman from Lambayeque, Peru, her brother-in-law, and three of her nephews were involved in a serious car accident that claimed the lives of both adults and left the boys with serious injuries. On April 26, Rosa’s relatives gathered in Lambayeque to lay her body to rest. The solemn procession was going according to plan, according to eyewitnesses, but at one point people started hearing faint banging from inside the woman’s coffin. When the lid was opened, the funeral attendees were shocked to see Rosa staring back at them…

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A few miles north of the Panama Canal Zone lies the Valley of Square Trees, a unique tourist attraction where trees of the cottonwood family have rectangular trunks.

Unique in the entire world, this group of square-shaped cottonwood trees grows in a valley created from the ashes of a giant volcano – El Valle de Anton. Featuring hard-right angles, the trunks of the square trees have baffled tourists and scientists alike for several years. Experts from the University of Florida took saplings of the mysterious trees to see if they retain the same characteristics in a different environment, and concluded that their square shape must have something to do with conditions unique to the valley in which they grow. Evidence that the cause of this bizarre phenomenon is deep-seated is indicated by the fact that their tree rings, which represent its growth, are also square.

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Speech2Face is an advanced neural network developed by MIT scientists and trained to recognize certain facial features and reconstruct people’s faces just by listening to the sound of their voices.

You’ve probably already heard about AI-powered cameras that can recognize people just by analyzing their facial features, but what if there was a way for artificial intelligence to figure out what you look like just by the sound of your voice and without comparing your voice to a database? That’s exactly what a team of scientists at MIT has been working on, and the results of their work are impressive, kind of. While their neural network, named Speech2Face, can’t yet figure out the exact facial features of a human just by their voice, it certainly gets plenty of details right.

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Inspired by the comfort of the classic dog bed, a couple of university students designed Plufl, the world’s first dog bed for humans.

If you’re thinking that the Plufl is just an oversized dog bed, you’re technically right, but according to its creators, University of British Columbia students Noah Silverman and Yuki Kinoshita, it’s also much more than that. Apparently, the Plufl was engineered “to provide the optimal napping experience” and “maximize comfort and foster a sense of security, delivering relief for those who have ADHD, stress, and anxiety-related issues.”

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A legendary butcher shop in Takasago, Japan allegedly makes Kobe beef croquettes so delicious that people are willing to wait years, even decades just to try them.

Meat & Delicatessen Asahiya, a popular butcher shop in Takasago, Japan’s Hyōgo Prefecture, has been making crispy beef croquettes since it opened, in 1918. You can go right in and order yourself a couple of these fried treats, and you’ll most likely love every bite, but if you’re looking to try the very best croquettes Asahiya has to offer, you’ll have to wait in line. The butcher shop’s famed Kobe beef croquettes are in such high demand that people have to wait years, even decades to receive their order. 

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An American family caused quite the scare at Israel’s main international airport last week after presenting an unexploded bomb shell as a souvenir at a security check.

Passengers at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv suffered the fright of their lives last Thursday, when a U.S. family casually presented an unexploded ordinance at a security check. A member of the family, whose names have not been revealed, had reportedly picked up the explosive as a souvenir on a visit to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and decided that it would be a good idea to take it home to the States as a souvenir. According to eye-witnesses, the man simply took it out of his backpack and showed it to security staff, asking them if it could be put in a suitcase.

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A young woman in Nonthaburi, Central Thailand is so obsessed with the color pink that she has painted her entire house neon pink and has been surrounding herself with pink accessories.

The pink house of Nonthaburi first went viral in August of 2019, when Facebook user “หนูเล็ก ลูกสาวคนเล็ก” uploaded dozens of them on the popular social network. It showed a large house painted neon pink both inside and out, decked with pink floor tiles, and featuring pink furniture. There was even a pink scooter parked outside, so clearly the owners had a thing for the color.

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An unusual capsule machine in Shinjuku, Tokyo has been getting a lot of attention on social media for dispensing ID photos of total strangers for 300 yen ($2.30).

Gachapon capsule toys are really popular in Japan, so popular that you can find them virtually everywhere, dispensing all kinds of collectibles, from small action figures and dolls to souvenirs. The concept has become so popular that it has been incorporated in the majority of mobile phone games, where users have to pay real money for the chance of receiving a missing character or skin. Capsule machines have been around in Japan for decades, but back in March, one particular such machine in Tokyo went viral on social media for dispensing something very unusual – ID photos of total strangers.

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Gabriel Cortez, a star midfielder for Ecuador’s Barcelona SC football club and the top scorer of the country’s Serie A this season, was recently arrested for allegedly being a member of a dangerous gang involved in drug trafficking and murder.

On Friday, April 22, Ecuadorian police raided 29 properties and arrested 18 suspects as part of a complex crime-busting operation code-named Gran Impacto 10. Of the suspects, three were reportedly active police officers, and one was one of Ecuador’s top football players, 26-year-old Gabriel Cortez, the country’s top goal-scorer so far this season with seven goals in nine games. Police descended on his home via helicopter and arrested him on suspicion of being a member of Los Tiguerones, a gang that specializes in a variety of criminal activities, including drug trafficking and murder.

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Michael Kish, a 70-year-old American runner, stunned the audience at the Penn Relays athletic event last Thursday, by finishing the 100-meter dash in under 14 seconds.

Imagine being a pensioner and turning up at an important sporting event meant primarily for athletes in prime physical shape and stealing the show. That’s exactly what Michael Kish did last week with his awe-inspiring performance in the 100-meter dash, blowing past his competitors and finishing with an impressive time of just 13.47 seconds. That’s a time most 20-year-olds can only dream of beating, yet this 70-year-old grandfather ran it like it was no big deal.

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The problem with having fish as pets is that you can’t really take them with you on the go like you can land mammals like cats and dogs. Well, unless you have one of these mobile fish tanks, that is!

It all started with a series of posts on the Facebook Open Society group from members who claimed to have spotted a man walking his pet fish around Taipei in a contraption that looked like a fish tank on wheels. Some of the photos went viral, and people started commenting that the man pushing the fish tank was a popular Taiwanese DIY youtuber called Huang Xiaojie, aka ‘Jerry’. Sure enough, on April 23rd, Jerry released a video showcasing his invention, calling it one of his toughest challenges yet.

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