Chinese businessman Tan Youhui was looking for a hitman to take out a competitor, Wei Mou, and was willing to pay 2 million yuan (£218,000) to get the job done.

Turned out that the hitman that Mr. Youhui hired decided to pass the offer to another hitman for half the original price. The second then subcontracted the third and so on until the fifth hitman was offended at how low the value of the contract had become. This led him to eventually hint to the police until they found out about the plot.

The businessman and all the five hitmen were convicted of attempted murder after three years of trial. The businessman who hired the hitman was sentenced for five years, the first hitman for three years and six months, the second and third for three years and three months, the fourth for three years and the last for two years and seven months.

Photo Credits: Nanning Intermediate People's Court / AFP

What do you know about San Marino? Probably not much, as it is tiny, but not the tiniest country in the world (that would be Vatican City, which like San Marino is entirely surrounded by Italy). With a population of 33,000, San Marino has its own rich history and architecture, its own laws, currency, and culture. And in a short travelogue by Half-Asleep Chris, you'll see that San Marino is utterly charming. -via Digg

The Ohio State Marching Band did Spongebob during their halftime show at Saturday's game. Yes, TBDBITL told an entire story with their formations. They called their episode "The Great Buckeye Chase." There's a tribute to the real Spongebob Squarepants episode "Band Geeks." The song you didn't get to hear is this one.

NASA is planning to send a golf-cart sized robot to the moon surface in 2022 as preparation for the planned human return to the moon in 2024. The robot will search for deposits of water below the surface of the moon. If there really is water there, humans can possibly use that for drinking and for making rocket fuel.

The VIPER robot will drive for miles (km) on the dusty lunar surface to get a closer look at what NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine has touted for months: underground pockets of “hundreds of millions of tons of water ice” that could help turn the moon into a jumping-off point to Mars. 

See more details over at Reuters.

(Image Credit: rkarkowski/ Pixabay)

Airport noises have been very disturbing and inconvenient for the residents of Hoofddorp-Noord, Netherlands. As a response, the government formed an independent organization to find a solution to the pressing concern. Working together with architects, the team learned from local residents that the intensity of the runway noise was dependent on the farming season.

"Ground noise is the low, rumbling sound that aircraft make when they take off. That noise can travel even further in winter, when the ground is often wet or frozen."

They then realized that the furrows cut into the ground were helping to redirect the majority of the sound waves.

As a solution, lands were reshaped into ridges and valleys and were arranged into a calculated pattern in order to best absorb the noise. Actually, digging a trench naturally provides the soil needed to build a ridge.

What’s more interesting is that rather than being a mere sound sink, the area was then transformed into a public park with playing fields, cycling paths and art installations!

See more photos here.

Modern art encompasses a lot of different topics and styles, from lavish, artistic, and abstract rendering to simple, minimalistic depiction of anything an artist desires, who could have known that one of the environments that helped the highly-diverse world of art today were underground clubs and cabarets? The Barbican Art Gallery in London explores the impact of these venues on art through the exhibition “Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art,” Artsy details: 

From the 1880s to the 1960s, artistic communities in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America thrived because of these spaces. They had lasting effects on modern art.  Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen designed the now-iconic poster for Montmartre club Le Chat Noir, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec actively documented the performances at the legendary Moulin Rouge nightclub in Paris. 

Modern art responded to the intricacies of new life after the Industrial Revolution. Artists sought not just to commune with one another, but to invigorate their senses; many did this not just as patrons, but as performers and designers, too. At the time, the newness of these spaces made them creatively lawless. 

image credit: Feral House via Artsy

Where would you guess that the world's highest concentration of servals lives? Not in the mountains, nor a wildlife refuge, nor a national park. It's inside the fences at the world's largest coal liquefaction plant in northwest South Africa. Among the industrial smokestacks and barbed wire, servals have found a home. The Sasol plant’s ecologist Daan Loock heard rumors of the cats twenty years ago, and began setting camera traps in 2010. Evidence of the reclusive cats was right there, and their numbers are growing.   

The population is “incredibly important,” explains Dr. Sam Williams (one of Loock’s co-authors on a paper about the conservation value of industrialized sites and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Venda) because it “demonstrates how carnivores can coexist with human activities at the extremes of what was thought possible.”

This might be the understatement of the year.  

The cats, which reside in grasslands and wetlands throughout sub-Saharan Africa, are about the same height and weight as a female whippet but they somehow manage to be slighter and more delicate — as their “near threatened” (in South Africa) status shows. Historically, the Highveld — the California-sized, high-altitude plateau where Secunda is located — was littered with wetlands. But mass agriculture (mainly maize and beef) has transformed the landscape and drastically reduced serval numbers.

Read how these cats adapted to the industrial facility at Ozy.

(Image credit: Daan Loock and Sam Williams)

Researchers have identified the key role of sodium channels arrayed in nerve cells in experience of pain. They were able to visualize at a single molecular level how sodium channels and electrical impulses they generate are distributed. This research could help pave the way towards the creation of newer, more effective, non-addictive painkillers.

(Video Credit: YaleCampus/ YouTube)

Who doesn’t love travel guides? Printed or electronic, travel guides are essential for anyone who’s planning to travel to a new place. Today’s travel guides are colorful, detailed, and brimming with details. Have you ever wondered how an ancient travel guide looks like? Worry not as the British Museum has included the world’s first published travel guide in a new exhibition. Part of the exhibition, Inspired by the east: how the Islamic world influence western art, visitors can gaze their eyes upon Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam (which translates to “A Pilgrimage to the Holy Land“). This travel guide was written by the German politician and traveler Bernhard von Breydenbach in 1486, and features the first accurately printed illustrations of famous cities and Mediterranean islands like Crete and Rhodes.

(via Hyperallergic)

image credit: the British Museum via Hyperallergic

An 18-year-old has broken into a German prison and scaled a 4-meter (13-foot) wall to get to his ex’s window. Prison officials managed to intercept the teenager with the help of the fire service, who brought a ladder to bring the man down when he refused to climb back down. It is unclear whether or not his attempt succeeded in winning back the heart of his girlfriend (who is also 18). The teenager is now being investigated for trespassing and unauthorized contact with prisoners. The things people do for love, right? 

image credit: Mohssen Assanimoghaddam/dpa via AP

Harvard University scientists say they've found the smallest mass a planet could be before it could lose its atmosphere and liquid water. Estimated at about 2.7 percent of the mass of the Earth, this number is the equivalent of more than twice the mass of the Moon. While this presents another possibility to widen the horizon for new planets to consider for life support, size is just another factor in a planet’s habitability, as ScienceAlert detailed: 

An exoplanet is said to be in a star's habitable zone if it's at the right distance to be able to support liquid water. If it's too close, it would receive too much radiation from its sun, making it too hot. Too far, and it'd be too cold for liquid water.

"When people think about the inner and outer edges of the habitable zone, they tend to only think about it spatially, meaning how close the planet is to the star," astronomer Constantin Arnscheidt, lead author of the paper describing the research, published in The Astrophysical Journal in August, told Astrobiology Magazine.

"But actually, there are many other variables to habitability, including [a planet's] mass."

image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech via ScienceAlert

Bryanna Marie, an artist in Tuscon, Arizona, pushes the limits of handmade miniature paintings. She makes elaborate, detailed, and precise paintings of landscapes, fantastic scenes, and people on pennies.

What city would you guess to be the halloween capital of the world? Salem, Massachusetts? Derry City, Ireland? Somewhere in Romania? Sleepy Hollow, New York? No, it's Anoka, Minnesota. The story of exactly how Anoka was first bestowed that title was lost when fire destroyed the original documents, but the declaration has been made again since then. There's no doubt that Anoka goes big for Halloween, with celebrations lasting the full month of October, and touches of Halloween available all year long. The origin of these celebrations goes back a full century.

It all began on November 1, 1919, the day after Halloween, when Anoka residents woke up to a prank of epic proportions at the hands of some of the local youth. As the sun rose, community members were greeted by wagons parked precariously on rooftops, overturned outhouses and cows roaming freely throughout downtown and inside the halls of the county jail. To prevent a similar debacle from happening the following year, civic leaders banded together to create a Halloween celebration that would not only prove entertaining for people of all ages, but would also curb any attempts at future hijinks.

“[Before the inaugural event], the pranks were getting bigger and bigger, with kids throwing chickens off of buildings,” says John Jost, who serves as chair of the celebration’s 100th anniversary, which will occur in 2020. “It had to stop. That was the purpose of the celebration, to divert pranksters and keep them busy.”

Anoka has embraced the holiday ever since. Check out the city's Halloween website. Read about Anoka and its Halloween obsession at Smithsonian.

Redditor CaptainWisconsin made this monstrous stuffed bell pepper. When other redditors confronted him/her with the lack of post-baking photos, the Captain responded that eating the delicious thing was a greater priority. That makes sense, especially if there was reason to believe the monster might wake up.

Bigfoot Sasquatch Sticky Notes

Leave messages for Sasquatch and your other bipedal friends with the Bigfoot Sasquatch Sticky Notes from the NeatoShop. This handy little booklet contains an assortment of sticky notes perfect for jotting down observations, clues, and muses about your day. They are specifically helpful for when you want to get some information to someone, but that someone never seems to be around. 

The holidays are coming. The Bigfoot Sasquatch Sticky Notes make a great stocking stuffer or gift for all your Cryptozoological loving friends. 

Be sure to stop by the store to check out more great Office & Desk Stuff. New items arriving all the time. 

Don't forget to stop by the NeatoShop to see our large selection of customizable apparel and bags. The store features the artwork of thousands of amazing artists. We specialize in printing curvy and Big and Tall sizes and offer custom printing for your business and personal needs. We carry baby 6 months to adult 10 XL shirts in house. We know that fun, fabulous, and Bigfoot seeking people come in every size.