Busy Woodpecker Almost Brings Down Utility Pole

Woody Woodpecker’s exploits only seemed possible in the popular Looney Toons cartoon, but one real-life woodpecker recently proved that the birds can some pretty incredible things, if they put their mind to it, like peck through an entire wooden power pole.

Last week, a photo posted by the Snohomish County Public Utility District did the rounds on social media, garnering dozens of shares and comments, and for good reason. It showed a wooden power pole barely hanging on by a thread, after having been pecked by a hard-working woodpecker. How the pole was still standing, considering the damage that had been done to it, is anyone’s guess, but a few more pecks or a strong gust of wind would have probably brought it down in a day or two. Luckily, Snohomish County staff managed to change it in time.

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Oregon Mother Donates 2.5 Tonnes of Breast Milk to Families Who Need It

Elisabeth Anderson-Sierra, a 29-year-old mother-of-two from Beaverton, Oregon, suffers from a rare condition known as Hyperlactation Syndrome. She produces about 1.7 gallons of breast milk per day, almost 10 times as much as most lactating women, and spends around 10 hours every day nursing and pumping her milk. She has so far donated 600 gallons (2.5 tonnes) of breast milk to milk banks and families in need of it.

Ever since falling pregnant with her older daughter, Isabella, who is now two and a half years old, Elisabeth estimates that she has fed thousands of babies with her breast milk. She virtually spends her whole day pumping the liquid gold, which she then stores in four large freezers in her home, for local mothers who cannot breastfeed their newborns, gay couples and breast milk banks for premature babies. Despite the huge amount of time and the discomfort that goes into pumping the milk, the 29-year-old considers it a “labor of love”.

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The Nightmare of Living at the Most Spammed Address in the Netherlands

Can you imagine receiving dozens of letters from strangers every day, having your utilities cut off, or not being able to unsubscribe from certain services, all because of an unfortunate address? That’s what life is like at 1234 AB, 123 (changed for privacy reasons), the address that most hackers, as well as everyday people in the Netherlands, use when filling out online forms. They do it out of laziness, or to protect their own privacy, without realizing that some of the things they do online actually affect the people at that address.

Motherboard Netherlands recently learned that 1234 AB, 123 was the most spammed address in the country, and decided to investigate if such an address actually existed. A Google search revealed that there was a indeed a place in the Noord Holland province with that exact address, and it even showed up on Streetview. They were soon able to find some phone numbers of the people living there, to ask them if living at the most spammed address in the country affected their lives in any way. Turns out it does, “bigly”!

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Would You Pay $30,000 for the “World’s Most Luxurious Coloring Book”?

The Bespoke Coloring Book is being hailed as the “world’s most luxurious coloring book” and has a price tag to match – $30,850 for 10 bespoke illustrations created by famed illustrator Ian Beck, based on your personal preferences.

Adult coloring books have become insanely popular in the last few years, with more and more grownups turning to them as a way to relax, combat stress and let loose their inner child. You can find them in virtually any bookstore, and there are literary thousands of themes to choose from. But luxury goods&services company Very First To did some research and found that there was no luxury coloring books for rich people, so they decided to make one. And boy did they come up with something special.

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Man Ends Up in the Hospital After Drinking “Satan’s Shot” Vodka

A man from Surrey, UK, lost consciousness and had to be hospitalized after he and a few friends shared a bottle of Satan’s Shot vodka, a special liquor infused with Carolina Reapers, the hottest chillies in the world.

Emma Mirrington, 42, from Farncombe, bought a bottle of Satan’s Shot vodka at Guildford Cheese and Chilli Festival, on Sunday, and decided to share it with some friends. They all gathered at at The White Hart pub to sample the rare spirit, ignoring the label warning “Only Satan himself is brave enough to drink this vodka neat, if you feel fearless and want to drink with Satan, you will feel like you are burning in hell itself.” It turns out the bottling company wasn’t exaggerating one bit.

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German Man Swims to Work Every Day to Avoid Heavy Traffic

Most commuters in Munich, Germany, spend hours stuck in traffic or trying to squeeze into one of the overcrowded subway trains, every morning, but for 40-year-old Benjamin David, commuting is actually a relaxing experience. Every day, he jumps into the Isar River and swims two kilometers to his workplace in Kulturstrand.

Benjamin David used to be one of the thousands of Münchners trying to make their way to work on busy roads and cycling paths, but two years ago he decided that he needed to find a simpler alternative and the Isar River seemed like the obvious answer. It flows right past his apartment in Baldeplatz, and, even though no one has been using it for traveling purposes in decades, it used to be the best ways to get around. People traveled up and down the Isar using rafts, and, at one point, it was one of the most popular routes between Rome and Vienna. But instead of paddling on a raft, Benjamin decided to swim to work instead, and that’s been his main commute for the past two years.

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Insatiable 10-Year-Old Boy Weighs 90 Kg, Eats Anything He Gets His Hands On

At age 10, Caden Benjamin, from Mpumalanga, South Africa already tips the scales at a whopping 90 kg. He suffers from a rare genetic disorder known as Prader-Willi syndrome, which makes him feel hungry all the time.

Caden was always a hungry child, but his mother, Zola, realized that there was something unusual about his appetite at age 3, when he already weighed 40 kilograms. He took the boy to several doctors, but no one could explain why he was so hungry all the time and gaining so much weight. Finally, a doctor at Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria ran some tests and diagnosed Caden with Prader-Willi syndrome, an incurable condition that affects about 20 000 people worldwide.

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Chinese Man Proves That Eating 54 Ice Creams in One Sitting Is Not a Good Idea

A 44-year-old man from Quzhou, China’s Zhejiang province, was recently hospitalized with severe kidney problems, after eating a whopping 54 ice creams in one sitting, and washing them down with ice water.

The man, surnamed Zheng, was at his home, on July 15, when he began to feel the effects of the heatwaves that have been sweeping China for the last few weeks. Tired and dehydrated after a hot day, Zheng went to his refrigerator and grabbed an ice cream to cool off. Problem was that that first ice-cream only made him crave another, and then another, so he kept eating them until he went through all the 54 frozen treats he had in his fridge. I’ve never head of anyone having that many ice-creams in their home, but apparently this guy did.

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“World’s Dullest Movie” Is an 8-Hour Snoozefest Featuring Nothing but Sheep

Filmmakers usually strive to make their productions as entertaining and engaging as possible, but the people behind “Baa Baa Land”, an epic 8-hour movie scheduled for release this September, set out to do just the opposite. With no dialogue, no plot and no human actors, just lots and lots of sheep, the so-called “world’s dullest movie” was designed to put viewers to sleep.

Produced by Calm, a company that produces mindfulness meditation products, Baa Baa Land is being advertised as “the ultimate insomnia cure” and “better than a sleeping pill”. It was filmed in Essex, England, and consists of slow motion shots of sheep in a field. Basically, nothing happens for eight hours, but that was the whole the whole point. Producer Peter Freedman, said that he believed it could be the dullest film ever made, adding: “We hope that audiences will, too”.

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German Radio Station Creates Special Program for Lonely Canines

When dogs get lonely, they sometimes keep themselves busy by wreaking havoc around the house, and that doesn’t really sit well with their owners. That’s why one German radio host, who also happens to be a dog owner, came up with the idea for a 24/7 program designed to relax canine listeners and make them feel like they are not alone.

When 30-year old Stephan “Stocki” Stock, a radio moderator at RadioTon, in Germany’s Baden-Württemberg region, announced the creation of a program aimed at dogs, everyone thought it was just a clever April Fools prank. Only it wasn’t. For the past three and a half months, “Hallo Hasso” has been pumping out music for lonely pooches both on the radio and online.

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50-Year-Old Former Male Model-Turned Photographer Stuns Internet with His Youthful Looks

Asian media is abuzz with talk and photos of a 50-year-old Singaporean photographer who doesn’t look a day over 30. His name is Chuando Tan and to say that he has aged well would be a gross understatement.

I can think of quite a few celebrities in their 50s who look very well for their age, but looking at these photos of Chuando Tan just makes you scratch your head and scroll up to the title of the article to make sure you read his age correctly. I was skeptical about his age after finding some photos of him on an obscure Chinese website, but several online sources have already confirmed that the man is actually in his 50s, including The Straits Times, which did an interview with him 2001.

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New Cancer Drugs Turn Patients’ Gray Hair Dark Again

Cancer therapy is known to cause patients’ hair to fall off, but a few new cancer drugs apparently have a completely different side effect – they restore pigment in older people’s gray hair.

Spanish researchers testing three new cancer drugs – Keytruda, Opdivo and Tecentriq – for negative side-effects in cancer patients made a very surprising discovery. After using the drugs, 14 of the 52 patients involved in the study saw their gray hair go brown or black again. The findings were recently reported in a paper published in the JAMA medical journal.

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Cambodian Woman Believes Her Dead Husband Reincarnated as 5-Month-Old Calf

Khim Hang, a 74-year-old woman from Cambodia’s Kratie province, recently made news headlines around the world, after it was reported that she shares her home with a 5-month-old calf, which she believes is a reincarnation of her dead husband.

Khim was devastated by the sudden death of her husband, Tol Khut, a year ago, but she is convinced that he has come back to her as a calf. Born in march, the young cow believed to be Tol reincarnated, allegedly has some of the man’s habits, and only licks the hands of his relatives. For this reason, he is allowed to spend time in the family home, and is even tucked into bed at night by Khim and her children.

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Doctors Remove Over 200 Stones from Woman’s Body in a Single Operation

Surgeons at Guanji Hospital, in Hezhou, China, recently spent six hours removing over 200 stones from a woman’s gallbladder and liver, some of them the size of small eggs.

The patient, a 45-year-old woman known only as Ms. Chen, had apparently been experiencing abdominal pain for over a decade. When she first went to a hospital about it, an examination revealed several stones in her gallbladder and liver as the cause. Doctors advised her to undergo surgery and have them removed, but she was too scared to go under the knife. She only recently went to Guanji Hospital, when the pain became “unbearable”.

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The “Hyena Men” of Harar Hand-Feed Wild Hyenas Every Night

Hyenas have been a part of the history of Harar, an ancient walled city in Eastern Ethiopia, for centuries, so it makes sense that this is probably the only place where you can see “hyena men” hand-feeding packs of hyenas every night.

I recently discovered the amazing hyena men of Harar after watching a Reuters video of one of them casually feeding hungry hyenas with his hands and even his mouth, with the animals climbing on his shoulders to grab juicy pieces of meat. It was quite a sight to behold, so I decided to look a little deeper into this unique practice. Although the article claims that hyena men have only been around for 60 years, according to local sources, these brave men have been hand-feeding the wild hyenas living on the outskirts of Harar for centuries.

 

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