Cyborg cockroaches are Madagascar hissing cockroaches fitted with miniature electronic “backpacks” that allow remote control and transmit sensor data. Designed for search and rescue, they can reach confined spaces inaccessible to humans or machines.

In March 2025, Singapore deployed ten of these insects after a 7.7‑magnitude earthquake in Myanmar to help locate survivors under rubble. Electrodes guide their movement, while onboard cameras and sensors relay real‑time information to rescue teams.

Recent advances in Singapore have enabled robotic assembly lines to mass‑produce cyborg cockroaches, allowing each to be equipped in just over a minute. Combining the resilience of insects with precision robotics offers new potential for disaster response and operations in hazardous environments.

The posthumous preservation of Venerable Fu Hou, a senior Buddhist monk affiliated with Chongfu Temple in Quanzhou, southeastern China, exemplifies a rare and venerated mortuary practice within select East Asian Buddhist traditions: the mummification and gilding of monastic remains. This ritual, typically reserved for monks of exceptional virtue and spiritual attainment, reflects longstanding regional beliefs in the sanctity of incorruptibility as a sign of enlightenment or profound moral purity.

Venerable Fu Hou passed away in 2012 at the age of 94, having dedicated his life to Buddhist practice from the age of 17. Following his death, his remains were ceremonially washed and treated by two specialists in mummification. His body was then seated in a meditative posture and sealed within a large earthenware jar. Upon reopening the vessel three years later, temple authorities reported that the body exhibited minimal decay, maintaining its upright position with the skin desiccated but otherwise intact—a condition interpreted by the monastic community as evidence of his spiritual purity.

Subsequently, the remains underwent a meticulous preservation process, involving cleansing with alcohol, wrapping in gauze, and successive applications of lacquer and gold leaf. The body was dressed in monastic robes and prepared for enshrinement within a custom glass case equipped with protective security measures. According to the abbot Li Ren and regional accounts, the incorruptibility of Fu Hou’s body affirms a local Buddhist belief: that only monks of exceptional virtue are able to resist the natural process of decay. The gilded relic now resides at the temple site, where it functions both as an object of veneration and as a source of inspiration for the laity and monastic community alike.

Phra Somdej amulets are among the most significant Buddhist talismans in Thailand, created in the mid-19th century by Somdej Toh, a highly respected monk at Wat Rakhang Kositaram in Bangkok. These amulets are considered symbols of spiritual protection, good fortune, and adherence to Buddhist teachings.

The amulets are made from a mixture of sacred materials, including temple powders, honey, and monk’s hair, and feature an image of a seated Buddha on a tiered throne representing peace and enlightenment. Somdej Toh personally consecrated these amulets through Buddhist chants, thought to imbue them with protective spiritual energy.

Beyond their religious and cultural importance, Phra Somdej amulets are believed to possess mystical properties that offer protection against physical harm, accidents, and malevolent forces. They are also associated with attracting prosperity, success, and resilience. Anecdotal reports document cases of amulets seemingly enabling wearers to avoid danger or experience unexpected fortune, contributing to their reputation as powerful talismans.

The production process includes ritualistic and symbolic elements, such as the incorporation of monk’s hair and other consecrated ingredients, reflecting a complex spiritual tradition. These aspects contribute to the amulets’ unique status, blending religious devotion with cultural heritage.

Original Phra Somdej amulets are highly valued by collectors and can command substantial prices, although their primary function remains devotional. They continue to be important objects within Thai Buddhism, embodying centuries of spiritual practice, artistry, and folklore, and serving as enduring symbols of faith and protection.

Across the archipelago, tales of warriors wielding occult ilmu have long underpinned regional martial displays, part theatre and part deterrent. Each locale presents its own proof of potency, such as Pencak Silat in Minangkabau and Reog in Ponorogo, yet Old Banten’s Debus remains the most feared. Local lore traces the art to the sixteenth-century court of Sultan Hasanudin, where Quranic invocation merged with feats of bodily imperviousness (spike driving, fire walking, flesh slashing) to signal communal invulnerability and draw converts.

Although Banten’s port declined after the seventeenth century, Debus persisted in rural enclaves. Modern custodians like the nonagenarian Haji Mohammad Idries pass on the craft through forty-day fasts and other ascetic rites, claiming no elaborate katas, only a direct transfer of sacred force. Weekly gatherings heavy with chant and incense culminate in visceral demonstrations: bricks shattered on men lying on nail beds, machete wounds closing at a touch, live bats expelled from open throats. Illusion or esoteric science notwithstanding, the spectacle functions as social technology, a live manifesto that Bantenese bodies, and thus their homeland, remain guarded by powers unseen.

Marapu, alternatively rendered as Marafu in regional dialects, is a localized system of ancestral religion practiced predominantly on the island of Sumba and, to a lesser extent, in adjacent highland zones of Flores. Because it is not classified among Indonesia’s six state-sanctioned religions, adherents must identify administratively as Muslim or Christian, even while maintaining Marapu observance. This layered religiosity illustrates a broader pattern of syncretism in which indigenous cosmologies persist beneath the bureaucratic surface of monotheistic affiliation.

The origins of Marapu belief trace to the Mbojo people of eastern Sumbawa (ancient Bima), from where it spread eastward through migration and political displacement. A key transmission episode appears in Bo’ Sangaji Kai, a manuscript of the Bima Kingdom, which recounts the exile of a Kalepe noble family to Sumba after dissent. The marriage of La Bibano, a Kalepe aristocrat, into a ruling Sumbanese lineage embedded Marapu within new ritual geographies.

Marapu retreated from Bima under Hindu-Buddhist influence in the early medieval period and declined further after the Islamic consolidation of the seventeenth-century Sultanate of Bima. Nonetheless, its survival in mountain enclaves was documented by colonial ethnographers Zollinger in 1850 and Elbert in 1910, demonstrating the tenacity of highland ritual cultures amid religious standardization and political centralization. Today, Marapu persists not merely as belief but as a living negotiation of cosmology, memory, and state recognition, residing in the interstices of official doctrine and ancestral sovereignty.

Lai Châu, Northwest Vietnam. In a modest workshop framed by mountains, a Hmong instrument maker  performs on his self-crafted qeej, a traditional mouth organ central to Hmong ritual and musical expression. Composed of six bamboo pipes fitted with hand-forged copper reeds, the qeej is both sculptural object and sonic script, shaped through precise carving, metallurgy, and inherited knowledge.

To the uninitiated ear, qeej melodies may sound cryptic or ornamental. Yet within Hmong epistemology, each note is legible as language. The qeej functions as an instrument of oral poetry: pitch, inflection, and ornamentation carry semantic weight, turning melody into text. This composition, played in a mourning context, is a funerary lament. Others speak of exile, longing, or ancestral return. In the hands of A Dung, the qeej becomes not merely a musical instrument but a vessel of utterance that transmits grief, memory, and identity across breath and reed.

Barangay Tapi, Philippines. Ka Daisy, a trans woman and guerrilla with the New People’s Army, filled a dual role as fighter and unit educator, teaching literacy and mathematics to illiterate comrades. A makeup kit tucked beside ammunition quietly declared that gender expression could coexist with armed praxis.

She died in an engagement with state forces, yet in collective memory she remains more than a casualty. Ka Daisy stands as a living text of insurgent pedagogy, queer resistance, and struggle that endures beyond death.

East Timor (Timor-Leste), located on an island shared with Indonesia, has a history shaped by colonial rule and conflict. In 1975, the Revolutionary Front of Independent East Timor (Fretilin) gained support for independence from Portugal. Indonesia, fearing Fretilin’s left-leaning policies and potential influence on its own minority groups, launched an invasion in 1975, leading to a brutal occupation.

During the occupation, the Indonesian army targeted civilians, carrying out mass executions, widespread torture, and the destruction of villages. Fretilin led resistance efforts from mountain strongholds but struggled to support refugees fleeing violence. Many who returned to Indonesian-controlled areas were placed in resettlement camps with poor living conditions. The occupation caused an estimated 170,000 deaths between 1975 and 1999, about 25% of East Timor’s 1975 population. The 1991 Santa Cruz massacre, in which 270 civilians were killed, brought international attention to the crisis.

Following the fall of Indonesia’s military dictatorship, a 1999 referendum saw 78.5% of East Timorese voters supporting independence. Despite violent intimidation, international pressure forced Indonesia to relinquish control, and East Timor achieved independence. Decades of conflict left the nation impoverished and traumatized, with most perpetrators of atrocities unpunished. Today, Timor-Leste remains one of the world’s poorest countries, focusing on rebuilding state institutions and overcoming its legacy of underdevelopment.

Pagpag refers to leftover food recovered from restaurant or fast-food waste, cleaned, recooked, and resold in low-income areas of the Philippines, especially Metro Manila. The term, from the Tagalog word meaning “to shake off,” describes the removal of dirt or debris before preparation.

The practice began in the 1960s during economic hardship and continues due to food insecurity and rising prices. Discarded meat, often fried chicken from chains such as Jollibee and McDonald’s, is collected from refuse, then washed, boiled, or fried before being sold cheaply, typically at 20 to 30 pesos per portion.

While providing sustenance for those unable to afford fresh food, pagpag carries health risks including bacterial contamination, food poisoning, and malnutrition, with children most affected.

Government responses focus on poverty alleviation through aid programs, but its persistence reflects the resilience of informal food economies and the difficulty of addressing hunger in marginalized communities.

The “Nam Con forest” likely refers to Con Dao Island, a former penal colony that played a key role in Vietnam’s resistance against French colonial and later American-backed forces. Though not an actual forest, the island’s rugged terrain and prison facilities became a center for political prisoners and independence fighters, who formed resistance networks and strategies despite harsh conditions. The infamous “tiger cages” and the Con Dao Museum now stand as reminders of the brutality endured and the resilience shown by inmates. Remembered for the courage and sacrifices of those who resisted oppression, Con Dao is a powerful symbol of Vietnam’s struggle for independence.