Many people around the world learn to count on their fingers, but we don’t all do it in the same way. Could there be a better method? How would you count to 10 on your fingers? Do you start with the thumb or the index finger? Left hand or right? Dactylonomy (counting on your hands) seems like such a simple and natural thing to do that you might assume it’s nearly the same everywhere. After all, it’s no coincidence that we have 10 digits on our hands and the most common number systems have 10 digits. This way of counting (called a base 10 system) probably arose because we have 10 fingers. If we had evolved with 8 or 12 fingers, our number system might be quite different. And the word “digit” in the sense of numerals comes from the Latin digitus, meaning finger or toe — because of the way we use them to count. But it turns out that people around the world have vastly different techniques for keeping track of numbers on their hands
Strange & Weird
This kinky beefcake is proof that love is strange — or at the very least a viral thirst trap. Yuri Tolochko — who infamously married his specially designed sex doll Margo last November in a “wedding ceremony” attended by dozens of guests — has found a new love match: a giant ashtray he wants to adorn with an artificial vagina. Where did the “pansexual” 36-year-old hairball of muscle meet his bizarre new love. At the club, of course. Although the proudly bald social media star from Kazakhstan noticed the ashtray a while ago, he claimed it was only when he arranged a photo shoot with the butt receptacle — during a paid personal appearance at the venue — that he discovered he had feelings for it. Goodbye fleshy, lifelike silicone — this daring dude is into hardcore heavy metal now! “I liked it — the smell of it, the touch of metal on my skin. It’s fantastic,” he proudly declared to Jam Press. “I like the touch of sharp metal on my skin, it excites me so I think you can understand what attracts me to this ashtray.” Rumor has it Tolochko met his new love while estranged from his wife Margo, with whom his marital bond was reportedly “broken” sometime last year.
The same day at least 12 U.S. service members, including 10 U.S. Marines, were killed in a terror attack in Afghanistan, Vice media ran a story titled, “Why Are So Many Marines Neo-Nazis?” Meghan McCain, daughter of the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), reacted to the story on Twitter, bluntly posting, “Go f*** yourselves.” The tweet from Vice, which hosted the article, has since been deleted. The Vice article, published at 8:15 a.m., complained about U.S. Maries supposed ties to “far right” politics and “neo-Nazism.” “While many vets are being outed as far-right extremists, one branch keeps popping up when it comes to neo-Nazis: the United States Marine Corps,” Vice claimed. “The Corps reported to NPR in April that it had, in the past three years alone, found 16 cases of extremism within its ranks,” Vice said. According to the NPR report, the 16 “ties” to “extremism” were linked “mostly” to “postings on social media.”
Conservationists captured the moment a giant tortoise attacked and ate a fledgling bird in the Seychelles’ Fregate Island. Conservationist Anna Zora explains what it was like to have witnessed it.
This child star is growing up fast and shedding her girlhood identity. “My mama did not name me Honey Boo Boo. My name is Alana,” Alana Thompson, who will turn 16 Aug. 28, told Teen Vogue in a profile about how she’s changed since gaining international fame starring in TLC’s “Toddlers & Tiaras” in 2012. While the tot beauty queen once seemed to proudly embrace the nickname, she now filters out friends based on who still chooses to call her by it. “I feel like folks are so much like, ‘Oh, my God, I’m friends with Honey Boo Boo,’ ” she said, adding that she feels people still expect her to embrace and embody the rambunctious, Southern childhood identity for which she became famous. They also assume she’s become rich as a result of it. All of that makes it difficult to let classmates at her public high school — or anyone beyond family, really — get close to her. “To be honest, I do not have many friends. At all,” she candidly admitted. Not only has Thompson managed to remain strong in the face of child stardom and her mother’s addictions, but she’s also come away from the incessant fatphobia she’s dealt with for years with a deep sense of self-love.
An Indian drug user suffered cataclysmic organ failure and died after skipping the use of a condom in favour of a high-powered epoxy resin while having sex. Cops in India say 25-year-old Salman Mirza was stricken in mid-carnal caper with an ex-girlfriend and his condition deteriorated. “They used the adhesive to avoid pregnancy,” a local investigator told The Times of India of the rueful rubber incident. The tragedy occurred June 22 at a hotel in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Mirza and his unnamed ex were captured on CCTV entering the hot sheet hotel in the Juhapura neighbourhood of Ahmedabad. “Several witnesses said that Mirza, along with his former fiancee, both of whom were addicted to drugs, had gone to a hotel in Juhapura,” cops told The Times. “There, they applied an epoxy adhesive on his private parts as they were not carrying any protection.”