Xiao Wang was only 17 years old when he decided to sell one of his kidneys in order to buy the iPhone 4 he couldn’t otherwise afford. After the operation Wang was told he was going to have a normal life with just one kidney, but almost eight years on, the 24-year-old is permanently disabled and dependent on dialysis.

Back in 2011, the iPhone 4 was Apple’s flagship smartphone and a status symbol at Xiao Wang’s school in Chengzhou, China. However, he came from a poor family who couldn’t afford to buy him the trendy gadget, so he decided to sell one of his healthy organs in order to get his hands on enough money to buy the coveted device. With help from a middleman, Wang got in touch with shady characters who specialized in trading organs on the black market and agreed to sell one of his kidneys for 22,000 yuan ($3,200), more than enough to buy the iPhone 4 he so badly desired. Unfortunately, this foolish decision would completely ruin his life.

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A Chinese man wound up with two large “play” triangles shaved into his new hairdo after asking his hairstylist to use a paused video on his phone as inspiration for the haircut.

It’s not uncommon for people to show their barber photos of haircuts they’d like to try, but one man in China made the mistake of using a paused video on his phone as inspiration for his hairdo, and the detail-oriented hairstylist ended up incorporating the “play” symbol into the haircut as well. To be fair, the video had been paused at just the right moment and the large triangular icon on the screen looked like it was actually part of the hairdo. What are the odds of that happening, I wonder?

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Netherlands-based startup SpaceLife Origin wants to send a pregnant woman 250 miles above the Earth to give birth to the first extraterrestrial baby in history, in the name of science.

Should our planet ever become unable to sustain human life, our species’ only hope would be to leave and settle elsewhere, be it a haven floating through space or another planet. But in order for this exodus to be a success, we first have to learn how to reproduce in space, and the founders of SpaceLife Origin want to get the ball rolling by sending a pregnant woman into space and having her give birth in zero gravity conditions. It sounds like a crazy idea, especially since humanity is a long way from becoming a spacefaring species, but SpaceLife Origin believes that our long-term survival depends on it.

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How long do you reckon you could last in solitary confinement and total darkness? How about for a prize of $100,000? One daring poker player bet his friend that he could spend at least 30 days in such extreme conditions and underwent a high stakes 30-day experiment to prove it.

It all started last fall, as a friendly discussion between friends. Australian poker player Rory Young asked his buddy and fellow poker enthusiast Rich Alati how long he thought he could last in a small, dark room without any human interaction. Alati’s answer of 30 days seemed unrealistic to Young, and from there the stage for an unusual “prop bet” was set. Prop bets are designed to test the mental toughness of card players away from the poker table, and usually have very high stakes. This one was no different, with both players depositing $100,000 of their own money in an escrow account and agreeing to pay the other side if they lost the bet. Alati stood to win $100,000 if he managed to spend a full month isolated in a small, dark room, and Young would pocket the same amount if his friend quit before the deadline. The game was on!

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If you mess up in your marriage, trying to earn back your partner’s trust with an apologetic chest tattoos full of typos is probably not the best idea. A cheating husband learned that the hard way after a photo of his chest tattoo went viral on social media.

A man named Jose L. Torres, presumed to be from Houston, Texas, allegedly wanted to prove to his wife that he was seriously committed to changing his ways, and decided that the best way to do that was to get a statement permanently inked on his chest. In the apology/confession inked nipple to nipple and all the way down to his belly button, the husband starts off by emphasizing that he is the tattoo voluntarily, and then goes on to say that he is doing it as a way to earn back his wife’s trust after causing pain and suffering in their marriage. He then confesses to being a ‘liar’, ‘cheater’ and ‘manipulator’, among other things.

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A 19-year-old volunteer firefighter from western Pennsylvania was recently charged with arson, criminal mischief and risking catastrophe after allegedly setting two houses on fire out of boredom.

Last month, police in Munhall, a community located about 8 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, arrested Ryan Laubham, a local volunteer firefighter, for allegedly setting fire to a pair of occupied homes on December 3 and 10. After interviewing witnesses and checking CCTV footage, authorities identified Laubham as the prime suspect in both cases, and he himself admitted to the crimes, saying that he had set the houses on fire because he was bored.

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Luca Luce is a talented makeup artist who uses his expert skills to turn his own head into mind-boggling 3D optical illusions.

40-year-old Luce has been working as a television makeup artist in Italy for over 18 years, but only started using his body as a canvas for optical illusions in 2014. He first made a name for himself online in 2015, when photos of his hand-painted optical illusions went viral on social networks like Instagram and Facebook. He’s come a long way since then, moving from his hands to his own head, which he now “carves”, “pierces” and “distorts” using only makeup supplies and mountains of talent.

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A Peruvian football fan recently showed his love for his favorite club by getting their jersey tattooed straight on his body. The tattoo took a total of 60 hours to complete, and has been getting mixed reactions on social media.

The unnamed man’s giant tattoo has been getting a lot of attention online since last month, when Jean Pierre Salinas, a tattoo artist at the Lima 13 tattoo studio started posting videos of the making-of process on Facebook. But while some appreciated the fan’s dedication to his beloved club, Alianza Lima, others said that he went too far and even mocked the man, claiming that while the team’s colors were white and blue, his darker skin tone created a brown and blue combination instead.

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Blood transfusions have been used to save lives for decades, but now one startup wants to use the medical procedure to combat the effects of aging by injecting older people with young blood. The treatment is called “Ambrosia”, after the mythological food of the Greek gods, which granted whoever consumed it longevity or immortality.

It only takes two hours to have two liters of plasma from donors aged 16 to 25 into your body, but according to Ambrosia founder Jesse Karmazin, the results are nothing-short of miraculous. He once called it “plastic surgery from the inside out“, told one reporter that while the transfusion doesn’t grant immortality, it “comes pretty close”, and told another journalist that just one infusion of young blood “dramatically improves people’s appearance, their memory and their strength”. The company even ran a medical study that officially ended in January of 2018, but despite boasting about its “really positive” results, Ambrosia Medical has yet to make those results public. And that’s what makes this treatment so controversial in the eyes of many health experts – no one has ever offered any solid proof of its efficacy.

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Japanese design studio CWF has created the “Backpacker’s Closet”, a backpack so large it can literally be used a closet or even to carry a grown person around.

Measuring 100 cm in length by 68 cm in width, the Backpacker’s Closet features a maximum holding capacity of 180 liters (48 gallons), making it ideal for carrying a young adult. And if you’re worried about the shoulder straps snapping under the weight, don’t be, as this accessory is not only designed to withstand the advertised maximum weight, but also features padding and an extra middle strap to reduce stress on the wearer’s back and shoulders.

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A viral video of a South-African man barking like a dog after allegedly being bit by a canine infected with rabies has sparked a heated debate on African social media.

The video went viral after being shared by Instagram influencer and entertainer Tunde Ednut. In it, a young man wearing an oxygen mask and lying on a hospital stretcher can be heard barking incessantly. The man holding the camera states that he is filming a “beast like you’ve never seen before” with the permission of the patient’s father, adding that the barking is caused by the rabies virus. The young patients had allegedly been bit by a rabid dog around two weeks before and, despite getting the anti-rabies vaccine, he stopped talking and started barking instead. The narrator of the video claims that the patients exhibited other bizarre symptoms associated with rabies, like foaming at the mouth.

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Gourav Mukhi went from being celebrated as the youngest goal scorer in the history of the Indian Super League to being suspended for six months, after authorities found that he wasn’t actually 16-years-old, but 28.

Mukhi’s troubles started back in October, when the Jamshedpur FC striker scored a “historic goal” against Bengaluru FC. Not only was it a crucial equaliser for his team, but it made him the youngest scorer in the history of India’s soccer league. He was only 16 at the time, or at least that’s what his documents showed, but all the attention made people look at him more closely, and some started expressing doubts about his age online. It didn’t take long for evidence of his deceit to come out, as only three years prior, he had been suspended from the National U16 Football Championship, for being much older than he claimed. So if he was older than 16 three years ago, how could he be 16 now?

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Police in the Russian city of Sevastopol are scrambling to find the vandals responsible for destroying over a dozen speed cameras in the last month.

Reports of damaged stationary speed cameras and the solar panels that power them started coming in at the start of December, and police soon realized that these weren’t just isolated incidents. Someone was targeting them and even getting creative with the means of destruction. First, they started by shooting the cameras with metallic pellets fired from air guns, then they moved to sledgehammers, tearing down the concrete posts the speed cameras were mounted on, and recently they even began setting the expensive cameras on fire. Sevastopol authorities claim that the capture of these vandals is now inevitable, but with 16 destroyed speed cameras reported so far, police has yet to arrest any suspects.

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Australian celebrity chef and Instagram wellness guru Pete Evans has come under fire for saying that “sungazing”, the act of looking directly at the sun, is a one of the best forms of free medicine.

“Every day I love to immerse myself in an experience within the cleansing ocean water as well as a brief gaze into the radiant light of the early rising or late setting sun,” Evans posted on Instagram. “These simple, yet powerful practices have got to be two of the best forms of free medicine on the planet for body, mind and spirit.”

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A winery in Spain’s Galicia region recently unveiled a revolutionary wine-flavored water that allows consumers to enjoy the taste of red or white wine without worrying about getting drunk or putting on weight.

Called Vida Gallaecia, the enriched water is the result of a two-year collaboration between the Bodega Líquido Gallaecia winery and scientists at the State Agency of the Higher Council of Scientific Research (CSIC). It allegedly tastes like wine, but contains no alcohol and very few calories, making suitable for consumption anytime, anywhere. Although the secret formula behind the ingenious beverage is a well-guarded secret, its creators have revealed that it involves the use of flavanols from grapes and residues from the wine making process.

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