Latvian performance artist Arturs Bērziņš has managed to spark a heated debate about the ethics of his latest project, where he sliced bits of flesh from two people’s bodies, cooked them in a frying pan and fed it back to them.

Bērziņš’ controversial performance, named Eschatology, was staged on March 6th, at the Museum LV un Grata JJ, in Riga. As promised, those in attendance were treated to something they had most likely never seen before. The artist, wearing a white forensic suit, practiced his surgical skills on two models – a man and a woman – slicing bits of flesh from their backs, then frying them in a hot pan and feeding the meat back to them.

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When Sayed Asadullah Poya, a 28-year-old teacher from Kabul, Afghanistan, decided to name his son ‘Donald Trump’, he hoped it would bring him good fortune. So far, it has only made life a lot harder for the whole family, and the future doesn’t look too bright.

Sayed’s wife, Jamila, gave birth to their son in August of 2016, when American millionaire Donald Trump was involved in a campaign for president of the United States. But it wasn’t the tumultuous political career of Trump that fascinated the young teacher; it was his business acumen and his go-getter attitude. He had just finished reading a translation of “Trump: How to Get Rich”, a 2004 book by the ex-star of The Apprentice, and after seeing his son’s unusual shock of blond hair, he just knew he wanted to name the boy ‘Donald Trump’. Time would prove that he should have given that decision a bit more thought.

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Here’s something you don’t read about every day: an Indian man who had only been married for six days helped his new wife marry her lover so that the three of them could be happy together.

On March 4, 28-year-old Basudep Tappo, a native of Palmara village, in the Indian state of Odisha, married a 24-year-old woman from a village in Jharsuguda, as per the arrangement made by their two families. Their wedding followed the traditions of the farmer community to which Tappo belonged, and even though no legal papers were signed, the two received the community’s blessings, so they became husband and wife. All was well for the first six days, but then three men from the bride’s home village came to visit and things took a bizarre turn.

The three men, one of whom claimed to be the woman’s cousin, were welcomed by Basudep’s family into the couple’s home. At one point, two of the men left the house to visit the village, while the two cousins remained home alone. Unfortunately for them, the neighbors didn’t approve of a strange man being alone with a newlywed woman, so they descended upon the house and beat up the audacious ‘cousin’.

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Just because your body will eventually wither away and die doesn’t mean your brain and all the memories stored in it have to. At least that’s the pitch made California-based company Nectome, which claims to perfectly preserve clients brains for use in the future when technology will allow all the information stored in them to be transferred to a computer.

Nectome claims that we will one day be able to survey the brain’s connectome – the neural connections within the brain – so thoroughly as to reconstruct a person’s memories long after they have died. That day is still a long way away, but Nectome is offering to preserve people’s brain in such a way that when the aforementioned technology becomes available, they can be among the first to resume their lives as computer programs, or even something more.

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The Beer Wall, a popular bar in Bruges, Belgium, has recently installed alarm sensors on all of its beer glasses as well as a scanner at the entrance, in order to deter patrons from stealing them.

All of the roughly 1,600 Belgian beers sold at The Beer Wall are served in their own specially designed glasses, some of which are apparently very interesting. From goblet-like glasses that usually accompany abbey-made beers, to glasses shaped like hourglasses or even sliced coconut shells, the famous Bruges bar has plenty of attractive glass artworks. The problem is that many visitors, tourists in particular, don’t settle for feasting their eyes on these unique glasses while sipping a cold one. Instead they steal them as souvenirs, ignoring the warnings in four languages on the bar’s beer mats, which state state that the glasses are not free, and that they can be bought from the souvenir shop next door.

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An 11-year-old girl from Belthangady, India, recently made news headlines for having around 60 dead ants pulled from her eyes. As for how the insects got there, some doctors suggest they entered her body through the ears.

Last week, the girl, known only as Ashwini, started complaining of severe pain in her eyes. She told her parents that she felt there was something stuck in her eyes sockets, and when they checked, they did find a small ant in one of her eyes. They didn’t pay much importance to it, as they assumed the insect had gotten in there by accident, but it wasn’t long before the girl again started complaining about pain in her eyes. They discovered more dead ants, and this time, they took her to the hospital.

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A 70-year-old woman from Salt Lake City, Utah, was recently found guilty of conspiring to have her ex-husband killed two years ago. But what’s really interesting about this case is that on the day of her trial she was also charged with repeatedly trying to have the hitman who ratted her out killed, while she was in prison.

In December of 2016 Linda Gillman was arrested and accused of trying to hire someone to murder her ex-husband and make it look like an accident or a break-in gone wrong. She had hired a man named Christian Olsen to do some work on her property, and at one point asked him to arrange the murder of her ex-husband and his new wife. She gave him a $5,000 down-payment, but also promised him a $7,000 diamond ring and $18,000 from the victim’s life insurance policy, which she would collect after his death.

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44-year-old Yang Dan has been a weather girl at China’s state broadcaster CCTV for over 22 years, but what’s most remarkable about her long career is that she doesn’t seem to have aged a day during that time.

Yang’s incredibly youthful looks have always fascinated her fans, but after the producers of her weather program released a compilation video of her 22-year career for International Woman’s Day, everyone started calling her an “ageless goddess”. Watching the video, it’s easy to see how people came up with that pompous nickname – at 44-years-old, Yang Dan looks as young as she did when she was 22.

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Ashley Maxwell-Lam, a project manager for a major bank in Sydney, Australia, has been wearing six-inch stilettos to work for about a year and claims they make him feel empowered.

30-year-old Ashley has always loved women in high-heels and the power they exude, so he decided to adopt the same footwear in order to feel empowered as well. The trick worked, and now he wears one of his nine pairs of six-inch stilettos to his financial services job in Sydney’s CBD several times a week, especially when meeting with new clients. Apparently, the combination of dapper suit, tie and high-heel shoes makes for a great ice-breaker.

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A middle-aged woman from Harbin, China, was recently diagnosed with chemical cirrhosis that seemed to have been caused by her long-time habit of dyeing her hair every month.

Referred to only as Mrs. Chen by Chinese media, the 50-something woman allegedly started spotting white hairs on her scalp when she was in her 30s. There were only a few of them back then, so she could easily pluck them out, but after she turned 40-year-old, the white strands really started to show, particularly around her temples. Like many other women do around that age, Chen started dyeing her hair to conceal the sign of ageing. However, she claims that her white hair grew really fast, so in order o keep it from showing, she had her hair dyed at a salon every month for the last decade. She recently learned that her habit has taken a heavy toll on her liver.

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Yuya Yamada, a hula hoop street performer from Tokyo, Japan, recently managed to set a new Guinness record after successfully spinning a 5.14 m (16 ft 10 in) aluminium hoop using only his torso.

Also known as “Hoop Man Yu-Ya” in his native country, Yamada is famous for his hula hoop tricks. He can spin a hula hoop while running, spin it vertically using both his head and his backside and can also spin dozens of them at the same time. The guy has incredible coordination, which basically allows him to keep the hoops spinning with virtually every part of his body, but for his latest world record attempt, he needed a completely different approach.

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Sam Ballard, an aspiring rugby player from Sydney, Australia, never imagined that a silly thing like swallowing a garden snail at a party would end up ruining his life and leave him quadriplegic.

Sam’s life took a devastating turn in 2010. He was at a friend’s party drinking red wine, when someone brought out a seemingly harmless garden snail and dared him to eat it. “Eat it, I dare you,” his friend said, and never one to back off from a challenge, Sam just swallowed it whole and, after having a good laugh with his mates, went back to the party. The teen didn’t give this silly dare a second thought, but he soon fell ill and had to be taken to the hospital, where doctors discovered that he had become infected with rat lungworm.

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The Thunder Child is a revolutionary search and rescue boat that is virtually impossible to capsize. Even when flipped upside down in the water, the vessel is able to right itself almost instantly.

Developed by Irish company Safehaven Marine for use by the Irish Navy in high-pressure situations, the XSV-17 ’Thunder Child’ can reach speeds of up to 54 knots (62 mph), fits a crew of up to 10 people, and is designed to absorb shocks from rough seas. But its most impressive feature is the ability to bounce back into an upright position in any situation, which makes it impossible to capsize.

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Scientists at Bar-Ilan University’s Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, in Tel Aviv, Israel, claim to have created some truly revolutionary eye-drops that can heal damaged corneas and improve vision.

Described as “a new concept for correcting refractory problems”, the nanodrops developed by ophthalmologist  Dr. David Smadja and a team of scientists from Shaare Zedek Medical Center and Bar-Ilan University have so far been tested on pigs with damaged corneas. During a recent presentation, Smadja said that the eye-drops repaired the pigs’ corneas, producing improvements in both short-sightedness and long-sightedness.

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Russian senator Valentina Petrenko’s political career stretches back to the days of the former Soviet Union, and she’s since held various senior official jobs, but the thing she is most known for is her hair. Already the subject of countless memes on Russian social media, Petrenko’s glorious hairdo recently went viral internationally, and people just can’t stop talking about it.

Speculation regarding Valentina Petrenko’s bizarre hairstyle has been running rampant on Twitter ever since Alex Bruce-Smith, an associate news editor at Pedestrian Daily, shared some photos of the Russian senator representing the Republic of Khakassia. There’s just so much people want to know about her hair. Is it real or a wig? How does she make it stay up like that? Is that where all the Russian top-secret information is hidden? Unfortunately, all anyone can do at this point is speculate, as the Russian politician doesn’t seem very eager to talk about it.

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