Between a global pandemic, racial unrest, natural disasters and looming economic crises, there are plenty of bleak stories making headlines every day. So here is a pick of the week's funny, quirky and surprising news from around the world to help alleviate the doom.

Canine ageism

One human year = seven dog years, right? Wrong! Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have found the equation is not as simple as that and actually involves some complicated math. More specifically: human age = 16ln(dog age) + 31.

The researchers studied Labrador retrievers and found that young pups age more rapidly than humans, but as years go by they age more slowly. So a one-year-old dog is equivalent to a 31-year-old human. But at age five, it is like a 57-year-old human, and at age 10, it is like a 68-year-old human.

Even man's best friend has been the victim of ageism.

Puma on the run

A Polish man gave himself up to police on Sunday after going on the run with his pet puma. The pair evaded capture for two days, despite a massive manhunt that involved drones, a helicopter and even apparently an anti-terror unit, as the man was a former soldier and Afghanistan veteran.

It all began when a court ruled that it was illegal to keep a puma at home and zoo staff came to take custody of the animal. Instead, the ex-soldier fled into the woods with his beloved cat. He told police this was in response to "an emotionally difficult situation." He delivered the puma to the zoo himself before giving himself up.

Sight-seeing penguins

How much do penguins know about dinosaurs? Two of the birds from Chicago's Shedd Aquarium got to brush up on their natural history knowledge when they were allowed a private tour of the city's Field Museum last week and came beak to jaws with a giant T-Rex skeleton.

The Aquarium has been using its penguin ambassadors to draw in visitors following its post-lockdown reopening, putting them to good use demonstrating social distancing and proper behavior at the ticket counter. The popular attraction already delighted fans during its closure by filming its penguins waddling around the public areas of the Aquarium and admiring other species in their tanks.

Other people's windows

Bored of seeing the same view every day while working from home? A Singaporean couple has come up with a solution for that: uploading people's views online and sharing them at random.

The website "Window Swap" already features window views from Portugal, Canada, Argentina, Israel, China, Indonesia, France and Ukraine, among others, ranging from private backyards and street scenes to city skylines and hilly landscapes, complete with traffic noise, birds singing or ambient music.

Users can also upload a 10-minute video out of their own window to share. 

"Let's face it, it's going to be a while before we travel again, and wake up to a new view outside our windows," co-creator Sonali Ranjit, who launched the site with her husband, told Campaign Asia. "So until then, why not voyeuristically travel by looking out of somebody else's window for a while?"

The long way home

What happens when flights are cancelled during a pandemic? For one Greek student stranded in Scotland and unable to return home, the answer was simple: hop on a bike.  

Kleon Papadimitriou, 20,  packed canned foods, a sleeping bag and a tent before embarking on a 48-day journey across Europe, cycling some 3,500 kilometers from Aberdeen to Athens.

He passed through England, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria and Italy before taking a ferry across to Greece, and would camp in fields and forests, or sometimes sleep at friends' homes.

"As a relatively introverted person, I was forced to kind of get out of my comfort zone," he told CNN. "It's just now dawning on me how big of an achievement this was."