Police have discovered a ring of criminals who were using spices to flavor rat, mink, and fox meat at marketplaces. So far, 904 people have been arrested, and nearly 20,000 tons of tainted or fake meat has been confiscated.

The arrests came after a sharp crackdown in food safety measures in Shanghai and Jiangsu after sudden outbreaks of bird flu, which is a major problem in China right now. Health officials there recently updated the death toll from H7N9–a new and particularly virulent strain of the disease–to 27, the latest victim a 55-year old man. 26 people have recovered from the virus. Scientists have confirmed that the flu is being passed to humans from chickens.

Food safety is a growing concern in China, as is the safety of the drinking water. More than 16,000 rotting pigs were reportedly found in a main water source in Shanghi in March; officials believe overcrowding of a nearby pig farm was to blame.

“Food safety crimes are still prominent, and new situations are emerging with new characteristics,” the Ministry said in a statement.

A man in China’s Guangdong province was hospitalized after he had shoved a 20-inch long eel up his ass. In his (admittedly poor) defense, he was drunk and watching bizarre porn at the time.

The eel, like most terrified animals, fought back after being inserted into the man’s ass. Eels have sharp teeth and it immediately tore a hole in the man’s colon causing internal bleeding. After that, it began to work its way through the body going after other internal organs. Here’s how far it got:

Unlike other men who have died from performing this incredibly stupid stunt, the unnamed man sought medical attention immediately for the eel that was going to town on his internal organs. The doctors removed the eel with a medical probe, but the animal died as a result. The doctor who performed the surgery only had this to say:

“This was a particularly idiotic stunt and could have caused him a serious injury. Eels have small but very sharp teeth.”

I agree with the good doctor here. Eels are not sex toys. It’s not advisable to ever have eels up inside you.

[IBTimes via Geekosystem]

Bathers in a Chinese bathhouse did just that this week as flames began to engulf the building where they were lounging around in their birthday suits.

According to a report from the Daily Mail, the fire began in an adjacent apartment and then spread throughout an entire block, including the bathhouse. One person is reported dead and six others were injured as the fire quickly spread.

The bathers stated that they had little time to react after smelling smoke and hearing screams. Many of them ran from the building wearing nothing, where they watched the building, along with their clothes, burn.

A spokesperson for the Yuequing city fire service told the Daily Mail that the fire began when a leaking gas pipe in an apartment kitchen ignited. The scenario is suspiciously similar to the one shown in the 1999 movie Fight Club.

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that a woman in the Chinese village told reporters that her hen began laying the huge eggs last week, and has produced several of them. She stated that she feeds the chicken rice, as opposed to her other chickens, which get corn. When the first massive egg was laid, she told reporters, she thought the hen was dying.

The eggs reportedly weigh over twice as much as normal eggs. It’s easy to see why. In the video below the woman and friends crack one of the eggs for cameras, showing that it holds two yolks and an entire other egg within its shell. The nested egg’s yolk brings the total to three yolks – enough for a proper omelette.

“This finding is significant,” said Chapurukha Kusimba, co-leader of the expedition and curator of African anthropology at The Field Museum. “We know Africa has always been connected to the rest of the world, but this coin opens a discussion about the relationship between China and Indian Ocean nations.”

The coin itself is made of copper and silver, and has a square hole in the middle. Researchers say the coin is called a “Yongle Tongbao,” and was issued by Ming Dynasty Emperor Yongle. Emperor Yongle, who reigned from 1403 to 1425 CE, was known to have sent a man named Admiral Zheng He on a mission to explore the Indian Ocean.

“Zheng He was, in many ways, the Christopher Columbus of China,” said Kusimba. “It’s wonderful to have a coin that may ultimately prove he came to Kenya.”

Researchers say that the island of Manda held an “advanced civilization” from 200 CE to 1430 CE. After that, the island was abandoned and never again inhabited. Chinese expeditions dried up in the wake of Emperor Yongle’s death.

“We hope this and future expeditions to Manda will play a crucial role in showing how market-based exchange and urban-centered political economies arise and how they can be studied through biological, linguistic, and historical methodologies,” said Kusimba.

(Image courtesy John Weinstein/The Field Museum)

The carcasses were evidently coming from somewhere upstream, and Chinese officials are currently trying to identify the source of the pigs. The Times report states that the pigs have already been traced to a province south and upstream of Shanghai.

Shanghai officials have stated that Shanghai Waterworks has been checking water quality on an hourly basis. After the first of the pigs had been noticed, Shanghai Waterworks stated that the city’s tap water still met its quality standards.

The report relays that Chinese officials are having samples of the pigs tested to determine their cause of death, which will be known within three days.

The Chinese State-run Global Times reported today that no viruses transmittable to humans have been found on the carcasses yet. Also, the ear tags found on the pigs were found to be scratched up, presumably by someone who knows it is illegal in China to dump dead pigs in a river. The report states that Shanghai authorities are now pressuring authorities from the southern province of Zhejiang to crack down on farmers who may dump dead pigs into the Huangpu rather than dispose of them properly.

The Metro reports that Gou Wen, 22, sent the love of his life a bottle of his own sperm as a token of his adoration. Despite it being the most insane, and kind of disgusting, way to show one’s love, the woman accepted the gift. Unfortunately, she thought it was moisturizer and didn’t even realize what it was until after she had smeared it over half of her face.

Upon discovering what had happened, Zeng Lin, 19, had Wen arrested. He will be forced to pay her $300 for her trouble, and the inevitable therapy that will come from this chance encounter.

Strangely enough, it doesn’t seem that Wen is a psychopath, but rather just a confused man that really doesn’t know how to express his feelings. He’s quoted as saying: “I love her so much but she didn’t know it and I didn’t know how to tell her, so I did that thinking it was the ultimate way to show love.” He even admitted he was wrong, and said that he would “find another way” to win her love.

I don’t think Lin will be accepting any more gifts anytime soon, but maybe they’ll get together down the road. They can then look back and have a big laugh over the time he sent her a bottle of his semen. It’d be a hell of a story to tell the kids.

Google and Alibaba had a bit of a beef last year, regarding the OS. Acer was set to unveil a smartphone utilizing the OS, which (according to Google) is based on Android, but Google felt that it was a problem in that it was not compatible with the Android ecosystem. As TheNextWeb recaps:

Rejecting Google’s claims that Aliyun OS is a forked version of Android, Alibaba pledged not to deviate from its mobile strategy. The company did, however, move to put some distance between it and Aliyun OS by spinning off the division.

As Greg Sterling at Search Engine Land notes, Google only has less than 5% of the Chinese search market, but Aliyun’s search results pages more closely resemble Google’s (or at least an older version of Google’s) than they do market leader Baidu’s.

Last month, Alibaba founder and CEO Jack Ma announced that he would shed his CEO title, but remain executive chairman. In December, the company, more known for its ecommerce offerings, announced that it had hit a huge annual sales milestone.

Flurry, a mobile analytics company, released new numbers today which says China will surpass the U.S. in total smart device activations at the end of February. Using its tracking technology, Flurry was able to determine that China, if its growth continues like it has in the past, will have 246 million smart devices compared to the United States’ 230 million.

Will there be any way for the U.S. to catch back up after losing out to China later this month? No, at least according to Flurry’s statistics. The U.S. will hit a population barrier way before China ever does, and China has a quickly growing middle class that will be in the market for new smart devices for years to come.

Of course, all of this doesn’t mean that China will remain unchallenged in the world of smart device activations. India poses a small threat to China’s dominance with its massive population of 1.2 billion people. Flurry points out, however, that India only has 19 million smart device activations at this point, and the country doesn’t have the same middle class growth spurt that China is now experiencing.

In short, nobody will reasonably challenge China’s smart device dominance anytime soon, but there are countries experiencing massive growth in the proliferation of smart devices. China was number one in growth last year according to Flurry’s numbers, but now it’s in sixth place. Taking the number one spot this year is Colombia, followed by Vietnam, Turkey, the Ukraine and Egypt in that order.

With growth like this, it becomes obvious why companies like Mozilla and Canonical want to get into the smartphone business. These emerging markets are looking for entry smart devices that most of the major smartphone manufacturers can’t capitalize on without making some major concessions in regards to build quality or feature sets. Apple is rumored to be making a cheaper iPhone for these markets, and you can expect other OEMs to start making more entry level Android devices for these markets as well.

Digitimes is reporting Apple is currently developing two phones for release in 2013, with a third phone already being tested for a tentative 2014 release. The first two phones are expected to be the iPhone 5S that will only change the internal specs without much cosmetic change. The devices are rumored to feature 4-inch screens and in-cell technology.

One of the phones planned for this year is once rumored to be the cheap iPhone 5S that will target emerging markets like China. Previous rumors said it would have a larger screen and feature a cheaper chassis. The rumor today suggests that the cheaper iPhone will be more similar to the regular iPhone in cosmetics, but perhaps feature lower specs. The reduction in price can also be attributed to better yields for the in-cell technology used in the iPhone 5.

So what about that third iPhone in production for 2014? Digitimes’ sources say that Apple is playing around with the idea of a 4.8-inch screen. If true, it would be the largest phone that Apple has made to date. Samsung and others are already producing smartphones with screens of that size and larger, but those phones are also comparably fat. I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple is waiting for a reduction in component size so it can release a larger phone without sacrificing the trademark thinness of the iPhone brand.

As always, these are all rumors at this point, but Apple has to shake up it’s iPhone brand at some point. The company has been playing it safe for far too long. If the company doesn’t introduce something radically different this year then 2014′s rumored larger phone may just be when Apple really starts to take risks.