Golden Blood, or Rh-null blood is an extremely rare blood type that has only been identified in 43 people around the world in the last 50 years. It is sought after both for scientific research and blood transfusions, but also incredibly dangerous to live with for the people who have it, because of its scarcity.

To understand golden blood it’s important to understand how blood types work. Human blood may look the same in everyone, but it’s actually very different. On the surface of every one of our red blood cells we have up to 342 antigens – the molecules that trigger the production of certain specialized proteins called antibodies – and it’s the absence of certain antigens that determines a person’s blood type. Around 160 of these antigens are considered common, meaning they are found on the red blood cells of most humans on the planet. If someone lacks an antigen that is found in 99 percent of all humans then their blood is considered rare, and if they lack an antigen found in 99.99 percent of humans, their blood is considered very rare.

The 342 known antigens belong to 35 blood group systems, of which the Rh, or ‘Rhesus’, system is the largest, with 61 antigens. It’s not uncommon for humans to be missing one of these antigens. For example, around 15 percent of Caucasians miss the D antigen, the most significant Rh antigen, making them RhD negative. In contrast, Rh negative blood types are much less common in Asian populations (0.3 percent). But what if a human is missing all of the 61 Rh antigens?

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Natalie Kuniciki, a 23-year-old paramedic from London, UK, was left partially paralyzed after her vertebral artery burst when she involuntarily cracked her neck, causing a blood clot to trigger a stroke in her brain.

We all crack our joints every once in a while, whether accidentally or on purpose, but apart from that satisfying “pop” sound, nothing really happens. However, in Natalie Kuniciki case, a simple and seemingly harmless thing like moving her head caused a stroke that left her partially paralyzed. The 23-year-old paramedic was watching a movie at her home in West Hampstead after a night out when she involuntarily stretched her neck. Only this time, the routine maneuver caused a loud “crack” sound in her neck. Natalie didn’t really feel any pain so she ignored it and went to bed, only to wake up 15 minutes later unable to move her left leg. When she tried getting up to go to the toilet, she collapsed, so the frightened young woman called an ambulance.

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Doctors in Shenzen, China recently performed an emergency endoscopy to remove a 13-centimeter metal spoon from a woman’s duodenum, after she accidentally swallowed it while trying to dislodge a fish bone from her throat.

The reckless patient, known only as Lily, reportedly swallowed the stainless steel spoon before the Qingming Festival on April 5, but didn’t bother going to the hospital until four days later, because she didn’t feel any pain in her stomach. She had apparently tried to use the metal spoon to remove a fish bone that had become lodged in her throat, but it accidentally slipped from her fingers and she ended up swallowing it. Talk about things going from bad to worse, right?

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A 42-year-old man in Shenzen, China, was recently hospitalized with a stroke after the staff at a local internet cafe noticed that he hadn’t got up from his seat in 50 hours.

According to CCTV footage, the unnamed man arrived at the internet cafe on the morning of March 31st and never once got up from his chair for the next 50 hours. It was only on the evening of April 2nd that the staff checked CCTV cameras and noticed that he had been there for over two days. When they checked on him, they found that he was paralyzed, unable to speak and suffering from incontinence. When he arrived at the Longhua District People’s Hospital, he was barely conscious and couldn’t move the limbs on the right side of his body. Doctors diagnosed him with massive cerebral infarction on the left basal ganglia and frontotemporal lobe, otherwise known as a stroke.

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In a medical case that doctors have called a “world’s first”, a Taiwanese woman was found to have four live sweat bees living in her eye, feeding on her tears.

The patient, referred to only as Ms. He, was reportedly tidying up a relative’s grave at the cemetery by pulling out weeds when a gust of wind blew what she though was sand and dirt into her eye. She cleaned her eyes with water, but a few hours later she started feeling a sharp pain in her left eye and started constantly tearing up. The 20-something woman was taken to Fooyin University Hospital in Taiwan’s southern county of Pingtung , where ophthalmologists were shocked to find four live sweat bees feeding on her eye like it was a salt lick.

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A 19-year-old woman from the UK went from having no idea she was pregnant to giving birth to a healthy baby girl, literally overnight, after going to bed with a flat stomach and waking up with a full-on baby bump.

On the morning of July 17, 2018, 19-year-old Emmalouise Leggate got the shock of her life. She woke up with a baby where there hadn’t been one the night before. Alarmed, the teenager called her mom, who in turn contacted her grandmother Louise to see if she could make sense of the bulging belly. Louise could tell it was a baby bump the moment she saw it, so she drove Emmalouise to the hospital and had her wait in the car while she went in to find a midwife. Only by the time she came back, the teen had given birth in the backseat. She had only noticed the baby bump 45 minutes earlier.

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An Israeli woman in her 40s was recently admitted to the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv with possibly irreversible brain damage after being on a fruit juice and water diet for three weeks.

The unidentified woman, who weighed less than 40 kilograms and was in bad physical shape due to the severe salt imbalance caused by her liquid diet, had reportedly followed the advice of an unlicensed alternative therapist. While the woman’s condition has not been announced by doctors, it is believed that she is suffering from hyponatraemia, aka ‘water intoxication’. It is caused by low levels of sodium in the blood. When sodium levels in the blood become very low, water enters the brain cells and causes them to swell.

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A Chinese woman obsessed with unconventional health treatments can consider herself lucky to be alive after she injected the juice of 20 types of fruit directly into her bloodstream.

The 51-year-old woman, surnamed Zeng, had apparently become obsessed with leading a healthy lifestyle to the point where she didn’t shy away from trying things most people wouldn’t even consider. On February 22, Zeng made juice from 20 different fruits, but instead of drinking it, she decided to injected into her vein, using a drip. It wasn’t long before she started experiencing worrying symptoms, like itchiness and rising body temperature, but she simply ignored them. Luckily, the woman’s husband noticed her discomfort and as soon as he learned about the bizarre fruit juice infusion, he took her to the hospital.

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The Department of Otorhinolaryngology at Taiwan’s Asia University Hospital recently reported the case of a student who fell asleep while listening to music with earbuds on and woke up completely deaf in one year.

The popularity of headphones and earbuds has skyrocketed right alongside that of smartphones, with people using them pretty much everywhere, either to listen to music, take phone calls or even study. Some people reportedly use them while sleeping to learn foreign languages subconsciously. Even though “hypnopedia”, or the ability to learn during sleep, isn’t supported by any scientific evidence, many people still believe that because the brain is able to perceive sound during sleep, by exposing it to new information will cause it to retain at least some of it. But apparently, testing this concept, or even listening to music with earbuds or headphones on while sleeping isn’t a very good idea.

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A California woman swallows about five live Chinese weevils every day as a way to prevent the growth of cancerous tumors and boost her immune system.

Marcela Iglesias, a mother-of three from Los Angeles, California, believes that consuming live Chinese Weevils every day could be the best way to prevent cancer, treat chronic pain, arthritis and various digestive problems. Swallowing them alive is critical as these bugs allegedly release a toxin called “coleotoxin” when they die, and you want that to happen when they reach your digestive system. This theory is supported by a 2011 study which found that coleotoxin reduced tumor cell growth by more than 70 per cent. That research is heavily contested by many in the scientific community, but Iglesias doesn’t really care, saying that even if the bugs don’t actually help prevent cancer, they are still a great source of protein.

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A young woman from Taiwan who had been using her smartphone at maximum screen brightness for two years ended up with serious damage to her left eye, including around 500 small holes on her cornea.

The 25-year-old woman, surnamed Chen, works as a secretary, a job that requires her to frequently check her phone and respond to work-related messages as soon as possible. A few years ago, Chen discovered that by setting the screen brightness on her smartphone to maximum, she was able to easily read her messages even in bright sunlight. Her mistake was keeping that brightness level at all times, even when watching her favorite drama series on her phone for several hours at a time, with the light off. She got used to her ultra-bright screen, but her eyes did not, and in March of last year she started experiencing discomfort.

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A 29-year-old Chinese man can consider himself lucky to be alive after doctors removed a wooden toothpick stuck in the right atrium of his heart.

The man, known only by his surname, Zhou, underwent an open-heart operation on January 9, at a hospital in Nanning, southern China’s Guangxi Province, to have an excessive growth removed from his heart. He had been suffering from poor health, including constant lung inflammation and high fever, for about four years, and had spent a small fortune ($30,000) on medical care, but doctors had been unable to properly treat his illness. Some doctors claimed he had sepsis while others said he suffered from leukemia, but during his recent heart operation, surgeons discovered that the cause of his health problems was a simple toothpick.

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Most people would never use a tissue that someone else sneezed in, let alone pay $80 for one, but one Los Angeles startup claims to have already sold close to a thousand sneeze-filled tissues to people who want to catch a cold virus now so they don’t get sick with the same cold later. Does that make any sense?

Vaev bills itself a “wellness brand” although technically it’s helping people get sick by selling them tissues that complete strangers sick with the cold have allegedly sneezed into. But who in their right mind would pay $79.99 on a germ-contaminated used tissue? Well, that would be “open-minded people” who appreciate the luxury of being able to get sick “on their own terms”. Vaev founder Oliver Niessen, 34, claims that these expensive used tissues should be viewed as alternatives to conventional medicine, in that they allow you to purposely catch a cold whenever you want, in order to decrease the risk of catching that same cold at a later date. It’s basically all about choice and getting “sick on your own terms”.

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A woman in Northern Ireland lived with a plastic painkiller packet stuck in her throat for 17 days, after unknowingly swallowing it in the middle of the night.

The 40-something woman, who preferred to remain anonymous, reportedly swallowed a Tramadol pill in the middle of the night, without first taking it out of its plastic packaging. The morning after the incident, she woke up with a foreign body sensation in her throat, and went straight to the hospital where she complained of discomfort and difficulty swallowing. However, the ear, nose and throat doctor at the hospital found that she was tolerating fluids, had no difficulties breathing and could mobilize her neck without feeling any pain.

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A 63-year-old Vietnamese woman who recently underwent a laparoscopic procedure to have a tumour from her throat removed was shocked to hear that the doctors removed a six-inch leech from her throat instead. The parasite had reportedly been living in the woman’s throat for about three months.

The unnamed woman from Vietnam’s mountainous Ha Giang Province had been complaining about severe headaches, frequent nasal congestion and a constant sensation of mucous fluid flowing down the throat, for several weeks. She eventually checked into a local hospital where ENT (ear nose and throat) specialists performed various tests and discovered an unidentified mass in her throat. The woman was scheduled for laparoscopic surgery to have the mass – believed to be a tumour – removed, but during the procedure, doctors were shocked to find a live leech attached to the woman’s throat.

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