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Weird but true: 10 recent incredible news stories you've probably missed

Published on September 14, 2025

Image: brotiN biswaS

Yes, we know, the world moves too fast. Hundreds of news stories are published on news portals and social media every day, and it's impossible to keep up with everything that's going on. Since we know you're a busy bee and you probably could do with some chill time, in this article, we've rounded up 10 recent news stories that are so crazy they'll not only shock you, but also make you smile. Enjoy!

A garage sale with a twist

Image: Margarita Marushevska

Back in 2023, an antique dealer found a hidden gem at a garage sale in Cambridge, UK. He immediately thought he recognized the author of the painting, one of the most important artists in history. He then decided to take it to an auction house to confirm his suspicions.

After a thorough analysis that took almost two years, they finally confirmed he was right: the painting was an original Salvador Dalí. It is called "Vecchio Sultano" and belongs to a series that the Spanish artist had created, inspired by the tales of The Arabian Nights. The painting will be auctioned with a starting price of £20,000. Interestingly, the person who found it bought it for only £150. Nice deal, don't you think?

A million miles away

Image: Robson Hatsukami Morgan

How absent-minded do you think you are? Probably a lot less than this 62-year-old Frenchman, who had to call the police after forgetting his wife at a gas station on their way to Morocco for a vacation. The man claimed he only realized the woman was missing after driving about 200 miles.

Oddly enough, the couple's 22-year-old daughter, who was traveling with them, was unable to provide information to the authorities because she had fallen asleep. The police had to check the security cameras and contact the phone company to locate the woman. After a quick investigation, they concluded that the man was truly an absent-minded person and had not abandoned his wife intentionally.

Three people and a baby

Image: Isaac Quesada

Recently, a team of British scientists successfully conceived eight babies using DNA from three people. They also managed to ensure that the babies were born without hereditary conditions. This was possible thanks to a new in vitro fertilization technique where a small amount of mitochondrial DNA from a donor is added to the mother's egg and the father's sperm.

Researchers at the Newcastle Fertility Center explained that one in 5,000 people are born with mitochondrial diseases, which have no treatment and whose symptoms can include vision loss, diabetes, and muscle atrophy. The experiment has sparked a debate due to ethical and religious issues. Yet, it has been proven that babies can be conceived without inherited disabling or fatal diseases.

Robin Hood's tree

Image: clement proust

A British court sentenced Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers to four years and three months in prison for cutting down an iconic tree next to Hadrian's Wall in northern England. This Sycamore Gap tree became famous after appearing in the 1991 film starring Kevin Costner, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Since then, it has been a major tourist attraction.

The perpetrators claimed they were drunk at the time, but authorities were able to prove the crime was premeditated. The men had traveled specifically to the site and recorded themselves cutting down the tree with a chainsaw. They also took a piece of the trunk as a trophy. As a result, the judge ruled that their behavior showed a "sheer bravado" that had caused an enduring sense of loss to the community.

Stress camp

Image: Héctor Berganza

Would you send yourself to prison for a piece of quiet? Just a few miles from Seoul is "Prison Inside Me", a unique retreat center where people voluntarily lock themselves away to detox from stress and reconnect with themselves. Imagine being able to escape the demands of everyday life for a couple of hours!

Those who attend this stress camp hand over their phones upon arrival, must wear a blue uniform, and say goodbye to watches, mirrors, and external distractions for a few days. Silence is the norm: they meditate, write, and breathe. The goal is not to be punished, but to find peace in tranquility.

Unique blood type

Image: Kaboompics.com

Can you imagine being completely unique in the world? A group of scientists has confirmed that a woman from the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe has a rare blood type that has never been seen before on the planet. This new blood group has been named "Gwada negative."

The French Blood Institute detected an unknown antibody when the patient took a set of tests before a surgery in 2011. At that time, the technology necessary to conduct in-depth research wasn’t available. It was not until 2019 that advancements in DNA sequencing allowed the use of a technique that confirmed a genetic mutation that finally solved the mystery.

Message in a bottle

Image: Snapwire

While cleaning a beach on the south coast of Ireland, a group of environmentalists found a stranded bottle with a love note inside. The message was written by a Canadian couple and said, "If you find this letter, please call us." Moved by the sentiment, they decided to call the phone number on the note to find out if Anita and Brad were still together.

After not being able to reach them, they posted the story on Facebook. The post quickly went viral in Canada, and friends of Anita and Brad Squires recognized the romantic gesture. The couple finally found out that their message, sent in 2012, had been found on the other side of the ocean. The couple has now been married for nine years and has three children. Anita is a nurse, while Brad is a former member of the Canadian police force.

Hot air balloon acrobatics

Image: E Hillsley

Recently, 30-year-old Russian gymnast Sergey Boytsov performed a daredevil stunt on a platform suspended above a hot air balloon at an altitude of almost 5,000 feet. But that’s not all; he didn’t wear a harness or any safety equipment. He then jumped out with a parachute.

It took a team of 33 people, two and a half months of training, two hot air balloons, one helicopter, and one plane to get the gymnast into the air. Sergey is no novice when it comes to heights or extreme sports. He had also participated in a boxing match at high altitude three months before. The feat was officially recorded in the Russian Book of Records.

Four times lucky

Image: Hermann

We all dream of winning the lottery, but winning it four times? David Serkin must be the luckiest man in the world! Not only did he survive cancer, but he has won the lottery four times, the last three in less than 12 months. His case is so rare that even the Western Canada Lottery Corporation claims that the odds of winning are 1 in 33 million!

Ten years ago, this lucky Canadian won $250,000, and although he knew the odds of winning again were very low, he kept playing because he didn’t want to give up the tradition he had been enjoying for over forty years. And thank goodness he didn’t! In August 2024, he won half a million dollars, in November a million, and in May 2025 another million. To celebrate, he took his wife on vacation to Hawaii!

Super-Chihuahua

Image: Kaboompics.com

A Chihuahua became news after its owner fell into a huge crevasse on a glacier in Switzerland and helped guide rescuers to find him. The man had fallen about 26 feet deep into the abyss while walking on the Fee Glacier with his small furry companion.

Fortunately, the man had a walkie-talkie with which he was able to call for help. But how would they find him? The Chihuahua, which had remained at the edge of the crevasse barking and moving around in the snow, allowed the rescuers to determine the exact location of the accident from the air. A true four-legged hero!

Words that marked eras

Have you ever unfriended someone? 10 words that were "Words of the Year"

Published on September 14, 2025

Image: Sathesh D

Fifty years ago, you would have been met with blank stares if you had used words like "unfriend" or "doomscrolling." When you read a list of the selected Words of the Year from the last two decades, you get a comprehensive snapshot of the main worldwide preoccupations of our time. Whether driven by technology, fashion, popular hobbies, or social media use, these words have become ingrained in the lexicon of dozens of countries. Let’s explore ten of the most interesting terms that prestigious English dictionaries have selected as "Words of the Year" in this century.

Unfriend

Image: Pixabay

In 2006, when Facebook was launched to the general public, the era of social media craze began. Teenagers as well as adults from all over the world slowly started joining the site with the blue logo to create their own accounts and reconnect with long-lost friends and acquaintances. By 2009, however, many people were regretting this.

The Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2009 was "unfriend." The term symbolized a new type of online relationship dynamic that social media was enabling. Oxford considered that the verb had the potential for longevity in a world where millions were making and breaking digital bonds every day. Although it is not as relevant today as it was 15 years ago, similar terms like "unfollow" are still common currency.

Selfie

Image: Dario Fernandez Ruz

Although self-portraits have existed for as long as photography itself, the invention of devices with front-facing cameras allowed people to carefully review images before capturing them. For the first time ever, it became very easy to take many flattering photos of oneself.

The earliest known use of the word "selfie" appeared in the 2000s. It is a playful diminutive (hypocorism) of the term "self-portrait photograph" that first caught on in Australian slang and later spread worldwide. In 2013, following the boom of sites like Instagram, Oxford Dictionaries named "selfie" the Word of the Year, explaining that its use in the English language had grown by around 17,000% in 12 months. The popularity of the word has become such that nowadays, front-facing cameras in smartphones are often called "selfie cameras."

Geek

Image: ThisisEngineering

This word was originally a slur. It derives from the German word geck, which means "fool" or "freak." For centuries, it was used pejoratively in that spirit, mainly to refer to carnival performers. However, by the time Collins Dictionary named it Word of the Year in 2013, its definition had changed. It had come to refer to a person enthusiastic about or knowledgeable in a particular field.

The editors at Collins explained that this word was chosen to signal how an old insult could evolve to have a positive connotation for experts worthy of admiration. After all, since the early 2010s, the word had been reserved for technologically oriented savvies who have been leading the way with this century’s inventions.

Photobombing

Image: Diana Parkhouse

Photobombing is the act of appearing in the background of a picture and distracting from the main subjects, whether intentionally or not. For several months in 2014, one photo of several celebrities simultaneously photobombing a selfie broke the record for shares on Twitter at the time, which helped turn the word into a mainstream concept.

Collins Dictionary named it the 2014 Word of the Year. However, it is believed that, much like selfies, photobombs have existed for a long time. A picture taken in 1853 in Wales already showed two ladies sitting for a portrait while a third, captured in blurrier detail, poked her head out from behind them.

Face-With-Tears-of-Joy Emoji

Image: Ann H

Yes, the 2015 Word of the Year was controversial: it was an emoji. Technically, emojis are "pictographs"—graphical symbols that resemble the objects they represent. In 2015, the Oxford Dictionary decided that the smiley face with tears of joy was representative both of laughter and of ironic preoccupation. This emoji was the second most used worldwide, behind only the red heart emoji.

The creation of these icons, however, dates back to the 1990s in Japan. They were developed to enhance the expressiveness of electronic messages through the use of logograms. Emoji is a Japanese word that combines e, meaning "picture," and moji, meaning "character."

Binge-watch

Image: John-Mark Smith

The digital content-streaming platforms introduced over the last 20 years have allowed people to develop a very modern hobby: binge-watching. Most often applied to TV series, the term refers to marathons of consuming two or more episodes of a show, usually in a self-indulgent way. The term can also apply to watching movie series or online videos in the same manner.

Though the expression has modern connotations, it has been used to describe fanatical consumption of TV content since the 1950s. Collins Dictionary named it the Word of the Year for 2015 after observing its usage rise by 200%, mostly applied to people who watched the TV series House of Cards or Breaking Bad in surprisingly short periods.

Upcycling

Image: Silvia Trigo

To recycle means to remake a material into its original form; for example, making a bottle out of a bottle. But to "upcycle" means to give a new purpose to an already used product; for example, using a bottle as a flower vase. The trend of finding new uses for old or discardable items surged in the 2010s, and the Cambridge Dictionary noticed an increase in its popularity in 2019.

The term was coined in a 1994 ecology article suggesting that instead of "recycling" waste products, a more helpful practice would be to "upcycle" them—that is, to give them a second, more useful life. In this case, the institution held an open poll where the audience could vote for their favorite Word of the Year. "Upcycle" was chosen because of its significance in the efforts against waste pollution.

Doomscrolling

Image: Charlotte May

Designers of modern portable devices succeeded in modeling display screens as if they were endless scrolls. This format may have facilitated reading on vertical screens, but it also encouraged an addictive habit of non-stop media consumption referred to as "doomscrolling."

The Macquarie Dictionary, the dictionary of Australian English, named this word the 2020 Word of the Year for its rapid rise in usage during that period. Several English dictionaries have since incorporated it as a recognized word. "Doom" refers negatively to the overwhelming sense of despair or captivity caused by excessive internet use. "Doomsurfing" is another version of the term with a similar meaning..

Gaslighting

Image: Brett Sayles

Gas Light was a 1938 play by British playwright Patrick Hamilton. In it, a man slowly drove his wife into mental instability by confusing her and lying about verifiable facts, such as whether the gas lights were fully lit or not. Psychologists later adopted the term to describe abusive manipulation through deception, and the concept became mainstream within a few years.

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary named "gaslighting" the Word of the Year after searches for the word rose by 1,740% in 2022. It was noted, however, that the term’s use had expanded to describe media and technology accused of "gaslighting" audiences by publishing misleading information.

Rizz

Image: Andrea Piacquadio

The term "rizz" became online slang after a popular video creator and his friends started using it to refer to a person with an attractive attitude. The widespread understanding was that the word was a shortened form of "charisma," or a synonym for having charm. Kai Cenat, the American creator who popularized the term, said he didn’t intend it as a synonym for "charisma," but the word took on a life of its own after becoming a trending expression online.

Oxford Dictionary named "rizz" the Word of the Year for 2023, a term that won against close contenders like "Swiftie," "prompt," and "de-influencing," all of which had been widely popular across English media in 2022.