1. The 300 million yen robbery, in which a young man posing as a police officer stole a vehicle containing almost 300 million yen and which sparked the largest investigation in Japanese history, remains unsolved to this day:
4. You can actually buy tsunami escape pods at certain retail stores in Japan. The Life Armor pod, which is pictured below, comes equipped with "GPS and solar panels, subfloor storage compartments, batteries, life jackets, a waterproof megaphone, and an emergency food supply," and can withstand 9.3 tons of pressure:
5. A new image of a supermassive black hole was released this week. Roughly 55 million light-years from Earth, this terrifying celestial object is "6.5 billion times the mass of our sun":
6.And the European Space Agency is designing autonomous robots to explore the Moon's caves, which could one day lead to subterranean colonization if these caves are found to adequately "provide shelter from radiation, micrometeorites, and extreme temperatures":
7. This is Otto Frank, who fought for Germany during the First World War and tried in vain to escape its cruelty during the Second. He would be the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust and it was his decision to publish his daughter Anne's diaries after the war. Otto died at the age of 91 in 1980:
8. This ship got stuck in the Suez Canal this week and is causing a major disruption in the global supply chain as container ships are now blocked from passing in either direction. Bloomberg estimates that this blockage is costing roughly $9.6 billion per day:
10. Though it might look like regular house cat, the Chinese Mountain Cat is an incredibly rare species that can only be found in China. The very first photo ever taken of this animal was captured in 2007 and not very many have been spotted since:
11.The Indiana Bell Telephone Company once moved an entire eight-story building to free up a plot of land on which they wanted to build a newer, larger headquarters — all while employees inside the building worked as usual:
In 1930 the Indiana Bell building was rotated 90°. Over a month, the structure was moved 15 inch/hr, all while 600 employees still worked there. There was no interruption to gas, heat, electricity, water, sewage, or the telephone service they provided. No one inside felt it move.
12. No, this isn't a Pokémon; it's a Costasiella kuroshimae, also known as a leaf sheep slug. Though their diets mostly consist of algae, they're also able to convert sunlight into energy through photosynthesis:
13. Crocodiles in Ancient Egypt, like other animals associated with the gods, were frequently mummified and presented as sacrificial offerings. In fact, many animals — including "dogs, cats, baboons, horses, goats, and birds" — were bred specifically for this purpose:
15.Robert Wadlow was the tallest man ever recorded at 8′11″ (271.78 cm), a record he's held since his death at the age of 22 in 1940. He suffered from a condition known as pituitary gigantism, which causes the body to overproduce somatotropin, more commonly known as growth hormone. Here's a photo of Shaquille O'Neal standing next to a life-size replica of Wadlow:
16. The Son Doong cave, which is located in Vietnam and is the largest ever discovered, was found accidentally in 1990 by a local farmer looking to take shelter during a storm. After the initial discovery, he would lose track of the cave's location and it wouldn't be rediscovered until almost two decades later:
17. This is the ancient Olive Tree of Vouves, and it's estimated to have been around since 1100 BC. To this day it still produces olives and its branches were used to weave wreathes worn by the medalists of the 2008 Beijing Olympics:
18. This stunning architectural feat was San Francisco's second Cliff House (that's right: the second), which was completed in 1896 after the first one burned down. The second Cliff House (surprisingly) survived the Great Earthquake of 1906 with little damage, only to be destroyed by fire the following year:
21. These remarkable engravings were found in Niger and date back to sometime between 9000 and 6500 BC. Early Africans are said to have associated giraffes with rainfall, making them a highly regarded animal in these ancient cultures:
