Woman hasn’t slept in over 30 years

A Vietnamese woman, Nguyen Ngoc My Kim, known as the “sleepless mutant,” claims to have stayed awake continuously for the past three decades.

The 49-year-old seamstress from Long An, Vietnam, attributed her ability to function without sleep to a long history of late-night work and reading.

Despite initially facing difficulties and health issues, Kim’s body eventually adapted and she no longer feels the need to sleep. Her story recently went viral, attracting visitors from across the country. Kim joins other notable Vietnamese figures with similar claims of extreme sleeplessness.

Rare orange lobster babies

A rare orange lobster being studied at the University of New England is now a mother to 100 babies, some of which share her unusual colouration.

Peaches, an orange lobster brought to the school last year, laid a clutch of eggs that hatched into 100 baby lobsters.

Peaches and her babies are being studied to identify the cause of the orange colouration, believed to occur in only one out of every 30 million lobsters.

Norma, a standard-coloured lobster, also recently hatched 40 eggs, and another orange lobster, named Pineapple is currently bearing eggs expected to hatch in the spring.

Gorilla-shaped sofas

A Chinese furniture company has started producing gorilla-shaped sofas after AI-generated images of them went viral on social media. In April, a blog called Inspiring Designs, posted AI-generated images of gorilla sofas, which led to widespread interest. Many people mistook the images for real products and asked where to buy them.

Responding to the demand, a Chinese company began making actual gorilla sofas, showcasing them in a TikTok video. These sofas, available in various colours and sizes, can now be purchased on Amazon for $9,995.

Parrot sets world record for identifying objects

A TikTok-famous parrot Apollo from Florida, has earned a Guinness World Record for identifying 12 objects in three minutes. The four-year-old African grey parrot, owned by Dalton and Victoria ‘Tori’ Mason, correctly named items like a bug, book and socks.

Inspired by Irene Pepperberg’s work with parrot Alex, Apollo has become social media sensation with 2.8 million TikTok followers and 1.37 million on YouTube. The Masons view Apollo as an ambassador for animal intelligence, aiming to challenge stereotypes about ‘bird brains’.

Published in Dawn, Young World, September 7th, 2024