Meet Ren Xiaorong, China’s Newest AI-Powered News Anchor

Chinese state media outlet People’s Daily recently unveiled the newest member of its news anchor team, Ren Xiaorong, a virtual, AI-powered anchor that can allegedly provide 24/7 news coverage.

In a video published last Sunday by People’s Daily, a virtual young woman called Ren Xiaorong introduced herself to the world as an AI-driven chatbot that has learned the skills of ‘thousands of news anchors’ and that can constantly evolve based on viewers’ feedback. Beautiful and smartly dressed, Ren certainly looked like an agreeable news anchor, and if not for the synthesized, out-of-synch dubbing, you could hardly tell she wasn’t a real person. Using an app, anyone can ask the news anchor questions on a variety of topics, including education, epidemic prevention, housing, employment, environmental protection, and many others, but she can currently only deliver generic answers in line with the rhetoric favored by the Chinese Communist party.

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Student Tries to Cheat on Law School Exam with Intricately Etched BIC Pens

A Spanish law school teacher recently shared one of the ingenious methods that one of her students used to cheat on an exam –  a dozen of artistically etched BIC pens.

Yolanda de Lucchi, a teacher at the University of Malaga, in Spain, recently shared a couple of very interesting photos on her Twitter account. She was apparently cleaning up her drawers when she came across one of the more ingenious cheating methods she and her colleagues had confiscated. A few years back, one of her students tried to cheat on an exam by finely etching the Criminal Procedural Law onto eleven BIC pens. A close-up of the pens really showcases the skill of the student, who obviously put a lot of time and effort into his intriguing cheating technique.

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Rare Disease Causes Fingers to Temporarily Turn White or Blue

Raynaud syndrome, also known as Raynaud’s phenomenon, is a rare medical condition that limits blood supply to fingers, and sometimes to the toes, causing them to temporarily turn white or blue.

Named after physician Auguste Gabriel Maurice Raynaud, who first described it in his doctoral thesis in 1862, this rare condition can be described as an overreaction to stimuli like cold or stress. In the case of the former, the body tries to conserve heat by slowing down the flow of blood to the farthest points, such as the fingers. To do that, the small arteries that carry blood to those points constrict, thus causing the extremities to temporarily turn white, and then blue, due to the prolonged lack of oxygen in the affected area.

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Sweet Geometry – Lauren Ko’s Mesmerizing Pies

Seattle-based Lauren Ko is a self-taught baker who rose to fame thanks to the mathematical precision of her pie designs, most of which are inspired by complex geometric patterns.

A former executive assistant in higher education, Lauren Ko got into baking completely by accident. She saw a picture of a really beautiful pie while surfing the internet and asked herself if she could do something like that. Little did she know that the seemingly unimportant self-challenge would change her life forever. After baking her first pie in 2016, Lauren never looked back, and soon after starting her Instagram in 2017, her mesmerizing pies were already a big hit on the popular social network. It wasn’t long before juggling her job and pie making got too difficult and she decided to focus her efforts exclusively on her passion.

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This Adorable Pooch Has the Head of a Dachshund and the Body of a Dalmatian

Moo, a 7-month-old Dachshund from Florida, has a head that doesn’t quite match the rest of his body. He has the black and brown head of a Dachshund, but below the neck he is all Dalmatian.

One look at Moo and it’s easy to see why many people assume that he is wearing some sort of costume or pajamas the first time they see him. His unique look is not the consequence of some mysterious condition, he was just born like that, and he’s actually a healthy and happy little dog. With over 21,000 followers on Instagram alone, Moo is also on his way to becoming an Instagram influencer.

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6-Year-Old Instagram Sensation Stuns Internet With His Chiseled Physique

“Chiseled physique” is not a phrase you would normally use to describe the appearance of a 6-year-old boy, but in the case of Arat Hosseini, the shoe fits perfectly, as they say.

Instagram star, soccer prodigy or expert gymnast are just some of the flattering labels people have used to describe Arat Hosseini over his short but very eventful life. He first made headlines around the world a couple of years ago when a video of what many originally assumed was a girl dribbling opponents on the soccer pitch went viral on social media. That ‘girl’ turned out to be a long, dark haired Iranian boy whose father had been training to become an athlete since before he could walk. Soon pictures of his tiny six-pack abs and videos of his training routines were doing the rounds on the internet, and Arat’s career as an international social media star took off.

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Meet Blaze, the Black Labrador Retriever Turning White Because of Vitiligo

Blaze, an outgoing Labrador Retriever from Finland became an overnight internet sensation after photos showing his color change from black to white went viral on social media.

Blaze was born with a pure black fur and stayed that way for most of his life, but last year, his human master, Santeri, noticed a small white patch on his ear. He didn’t think too much of it, but the patch kept getting bigger, and before long it spread to the 10-year-old pooch’s face and torso, gradually turning his black coat, white. A photo showing Blaze’s transformation over the last year was recently posted on the Facebook group Dogspotting Society, where it received over 32,000 likes and nearly 3,000 comments from people all over the world.

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Meat Company to Launch World’s First Hot-Dog-Flavored Ice Cream Sandwich

If we were to make a global top 100 ice cream flavors list, hot-dog probably wouldn’t make the cut, but that hasn’t stopped American processed meat giant Oscar Mayer from announcing the launch of a hot-dog-flavored ice cream sandwich.

Shaking up the hot-dog scene seems like a tall order, but Oscar Mayer is willing to try with its soon-to-hit-the-shelves hot dog ice cream sandwich. Made up of sweet hot-dog cream, candied hot-dog bits, and spicy Dijon mustard gelato, all squeezed between two soft cookie buns, the upcoming treat is advertised as the best way to enjoy a hot-dog in ice cream form. It’s not clear if this is just a one-time marketing stunt or a permanent addition to the Oscar Mayer family of products, but one thing is for sure, hot-dog ice cream sandwich is a real thing.

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Man Sues Bangladeshi Actor for Ruining His life by Showing His Phone Number in Movie

Bangladeshi film star Shakib Khan, one of the country’s highest acclaimed actors, is being sued by an auto-rickshaw driver for using his business phone number on-screen in one of Khan’s recent films. The plaintiff claims that ever since the film launched, he has since been inundated with phone calls from the actor’s female fan base, which caused significant disruption to his life.

The film, Rajneeti, was released on June 25, 2017. During a scene with his onscreen love interest, Khan recites his character’s phone number. Although a common trope in Bangladeshi films, in this particular circumstance the number was not fake or made up. It was the real-life phone number of Ijajul Mia, an auto-rickshaw driver from the Jatrapasha village, in Baniachang Upazila, and the scene made the man’s life a living nightmare. A few weeks after the film’s release, the phone number had already been widely shared among Shakib Khan’s fans, and in a five day period in July Mia claims to have received over 500 calls from women seeking the popular actor.

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Music in the Dark – An Egyptian Female Orchestra Made Up of Blind Women

Egypt’s Al Nour Wal Amal orchestra is one of the world’s most remarkable musical ensembles. It consists of around 48 blind women from Cairo who have to rely solely on their memory when performing complicated compositions by classic composers like Mozart, Brahms, Strauss or Tchaikovsky.

Learning to play instruments like violin, chello or flute is a difficult process, but can you imagine mastering any of them without ever being able to see them? That’s what would-be members of the Al Nour Wal Amal orchestra have to do in order to become a part of the ensemble. And, once they’ve finally mastered their chosen instrument, they have to train their memory in order to be able to store up to 45 composition pieces in their heads, to be able to perform a concert, all while keeping in sync with the other members during a performance. It seems impossible, but these incredible women are living proof that it can be done.

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Antisocial Woman Pretends to Be Blind for 28 Years So She Wouldn’t Have to Greet People

28 years ago, Carmen Jiménez, from Madrid, Spain, became completely blind due to a serious eye injury. At least that’s what she told everyone, including her own family, because she was tired of having to say “hello” to people she didn’t actually want to greet.

The 57-year-old woman recently revealed that she had always been able to see perfectly, which left her family in shock, even though they had always suspected that something was of about her condition. Her husband told reporters that she would put on her makeup perfectly, and sometimes they would see her trying to look at the TV from the corner of her eyes. But she never admitted to faking her blindness, until recently

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Throw Away That Alarm Clock, You Can Now Have a Real Japanese Fisherman Wake You Up in the Morning

Waking up in the morning is tough, and sometimes a ringing alarm clock just isn’t enough to jolt you out of a blissful slumber. Luckily, snoozers in Japan now have a better alternative – an energy-inducing phone call from a fisherman at sea.

Fisherman Japan, an organization whose main purpose is to make fishing cool again, recently launched an interesting wake-up call service aimed at people who have trouble waking up in the morning. Called Fisherman Call, the service literally has Japanese fishermen from the Sanriku region – one of the world’s top three fishing grounds – call registered users at a specified time to wake them up and strike up a short conversation that is sure to get them out of bed and boost their energy level for the entire day. Sounds awesome!

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The Green Lady of Carroll Gardens Has Been Wearing Only Green for the Last 20 Years

For the last 20 years, Elizabeth Eaton Rosenthal, a.k.a. Elizabeth Sweetheart, a fine artist in Brooklyn, New York, has been dressing from head to toe in various shades of green. To her, green is the happiest, most positive color in the world, so she can’t imagine wearing anything else.

‘The Green Lady of Carroll Gardens’, as Elizabeth is most widely known, has always had a thing for experimenting. At one point in her life she wore only 1930s print dresses, before moving on to single colors, like silver, pink, purple, blue and finally green, which she surprisingly never got bored of. Her passion for green started with some home-mixed green nail polish and a neon lime streak in her hair, but it quickly spread to her clothing and her home, as well. Today, she always sports green hair, an attire made up of different hues of green, and most of the things she buys, from towels and skin care products to furniture and appliances, are also green.
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Brewers Legally Change Their Names to Elvis to Avoid Legal Action from Presley Estate

The two founders of Scottish brewery BrewDog have both legally changed their names to ‘Elvis’ after being threatened with legal action by the Presley Estate over their grapefruit and blood orange IPA, called Elvis Juice.

Formerly known as James Watt and Martin Dickie, the two Elvises sought to prove that their new name is not exclusive, so they went ahead and got their birth names legally changed, by deed poll. In a witty response to the King of Rocks and Roll’s estate, the two write:  “We’re caught in a trap and suggest the grey-suited hound dogs at the Presley Estate recognise that the name Elvis is not exclusive. So in an effort to patch it up, we’ve changed our names to highlight our burning love for the best grapefruit IPA out there. From this point forward, Elvis Juice is named after us, the brewers formerly known as James and Martin. We may even file a case against Mr Presley for using our names on all his records without our written permission.”

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Black Is the New White – People Are Brushing Their Teeth with Charcoal to Make Them Whiter

According to an increasing number of YouTube videos and social media posts, one of the easiest, most effective way to whiten your teeth is to brush them with pitch-black activated charcoal. It sounds like somewhat of a paradox, but some users claim a single brushing can have amazing results.

Activated charcoal has long been used in medical settings to treat poisonings and drug overdoses. Unlike the charcoal we use for barbecues, this stuff is created when carbon is treated with an oxidizing agent, which results in a fine dust with millions of pores and an immense surface area. It’s these pores that give activated charcoal its sponge-like qualities, reducing the body’s absorption of toxic substances by an estimated 47 percent. It’s not the most specific absorber of substances,though, meaning it will absorb both good and bad substances in your stomach, but as long as you consume lots of water after ingesting it, you should be fine.

But while the toxin-absorbing properties of activated charcoal are well documented, its recent uses as an edible food ingredient and teeth whitening agent are not. No charcoal-based teeth whitening products have been evaluated and accepted by the American Dental Association (ADA) until now, but that hasn’t stopped proponents from recommending it as an excellent all-natural way to get a shinier smile.

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