Two people dressed a nuns robbed the West Englewood branch of TCF bank in Palos Heights, Illinois, Sunday afternoon. It was not the first robbery the branch has seen, according to detective Gerald Wodka.
This time two offenders entered the bank just minutes before closing time at 1:58 p.m., both with weapons, Wodka said.
They jumped over the counter and took control of two employees — a bank teller and the branch manager — ordered them to the vault where their Nike duffel bag was filled with currency, he said.
No shots were fired, and no one was injured. No customers were in the bank at the time. Police are not disclosing how much money was taken.
The robbers were dressed in black nun costumes as depicted in Ben Affleck’s movie, “The Town,” Wodka said.
Police are on the lookout for the suspects and their car, described at the Sun-Times. Link -via Arbroath
Actress Marilyn Monroe was born on June first, 1926. If she hadn't died in 1962, she would be 85 years old today. In 1961 Monroe was committed to a mental hospital in New York. She stayed four days, during which she wrote a six-page letter to her psychiatrist. Here is just a part of one passage:
I didn't sleep again last night. I forgot to tell you something yesterday. When they put me into the first room on the sixth floor I was not told it was a Psychiatric floor. Dr. Kris said she was coming the next day. The nurse came in (after the doctor, a psychiatrist) had given me a physical examination including examining the breast for lumps. I took exception to this but not violently only explaining that the medical doctor who had put me there, a stupid man named Dr. Lipkin had already done a complete physical less than thirty days before. But when the nurse came in I noticed there was no way of buzzing or reaching for a light to call the nurse. I asked why this was and some other things and she said this is a psychiatric floor. After she went out I got dressed and then was when the girl in the hall told me about the phone. I was waiting at the elevator door which looks like all other doors with a door-knob except it doesn't have any numbers (you see they left them out). After the girl spoke with me and told me about what she had done to herself I went back into my room knowing they had lied to me about the telephone and I sat on the bed trying to figure if I was given this situation in an acting improvisation what would I do. So I figured, it's a squeaky wheel that gets the grease. I admit it was a loud squeak but I got the idea from a movie I made once called "Don't Bother to Knock". I picked up a light-weight chair and slammed it, and it was hard to do because I had never broken anything in my life -- against the glass intentionally. It took a lot of banging to get even a small piece of glass - so I went over with the glass concealed in my hand and sat quietly on the bed waiting for them to come in. They did, and I said to them "If you are going to treat me like a nut I'll act like a nut". I admit the next thing is corny but I really did it in the movie except it was with a razor blade. I indicated if they didn't let me out I would harm myself -- the furthest thing from my mind at that moment since you know Dr. Greenson I'm an actress and would never intentionally mark or mar myself. I'm just that vain.
Read the rest of the missive at Letters of Note. Link
First they blew your mind when they told you Pluto isn’t actually a planet, then they told you that not only is Atlantis real, it’s been sitting in the bottom of some mudflats in Spain for a few thousand years. It seems history and science keep changing right in front of our eyes and pretty soon, nothing we learned in school will be true any more. Well, if you can’t deal with change, then you aren’t going to like these four things you learned in school are actually completely bogus.
The Pyramids Weren’t Built By Slaves
If you learned one thing about Egypt in school, it was that the pyramids are marvels of ancient technology…and that they were built by slaves. There are movies based around slaves working on the pyramids and every one has seen at least half a dozen pictures of the poor workers straining under the hot sun as their cruel masters wait, whip in hand, for someone to slack off. But working on the pyramids might not have been so bad after all. While it was still hard work to construct the massive monuments, recent research has shown that the workers were more likely skilled masons who had the right to leave whenever they wanted. Evidence to back this claim is supported in the fact that the workers had their own tombs right beside the pyramids. Egyptologists point out that someone that low on the social ladder would never have been buried so close to the pharaohs. Image via anniemarieangelo [Flickr]
Everything You Knew About Dinosaurs Is Wrong
Ok, maybe not everything you learned about dinos back in school was wrong, but a lot of it sure was. For one thing, there is no brontosaurus. Yeah, that giant lumbering monster we all learned about in grade school was actually an apatosaurus with the head of a camarasaurus. The worst thing about this inaccuracy is that it was discovered over a century ago, but up until recently, everyone (including a lot of elementary school teachers) still insisted on calling apatosauruses brontosauruses. I guess one mislabeled dino isn’t that big of a deal…but the incorrect visual representation of just about every dinosaur imaginable is. By now, you’ve probably heard that many dinosaurs probably had feathers, a huge change for those of us who grew up thinking about giant lizards roaming the prehistoric plains. But even those that probably didn’t look like giant birds still looked way cooler and more versatile than the oversized iguanas popularly imagined. These days, we even know what color some dinosaurs were, and they are a far call from the multitude of green shades we once imagined. If you really want to know just how different dinosaurs were compared to what we were taught, check out this great article on Listverse, about the Top 10 Dinosaurs That Aren’t What They Were. Image via Geoff S. [Flickr]
Arsenic Is One of the Building Blocks of Life
If you learned chemistry or biology in high school, you were probably taught that there are six chemical elements known as the “building blocks of life.” They are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus. These components make up the chemical composition of DNA and without them, life isn’t possible…or at least, we thought it wasn’t possible. Last year, scientists discovered a bacteria species living in a salt lake in California that was missing one of the building blocks of life, phosphorus, and instead had arsenic in its place. For some people, this might not seem like such a huge deal, particularly considering that arsenic is very close to phosphorus in its physical and chemical properties, but it’s a huge deal to scientists who suddenly saw a massive expansion in the scope of potential living things. It really makes a difference in intergalactic research, since the discovery opens up whole new planets as potential life-supporting ecosystems. Image via Artful Magpie [Flickr]
Humans Aren’t Really All That Special
Maybe this wasn’t the case for all of you, but when I was in school, the teachers seemed overly fascinated with telling us how much better humans are than other animals. They’d tell the class, “we’re the only animals who have complex emotions,” “no other animal is self-aware like we are,” “humans are the only creatures who use tools,” “we are the only species to communicate through complex language,” etc. I don’t know why they felt our fragile homo sapien egos were so threatened by other creatures, but I always thought that was a little strange. As it turns out, it was completely incorrect too. Recent studies show that elephants mourn the loss of their companions and many animals, particularly dogs (who have evolved in the companionship of humans), have far more complex emotions than scientists had ever imagined. And chimps don’t just have emotions; they also are self-aware enough to understand how their own actions will affect those around them. Well, we still have our intelligence to set us apart from the beasts right? Not so quick you homo sapien- supremacists. Actually, there are a lot of intelligent animals out there, many of which use tools and converse amongst themselves. Chimps have used spears to hunt for thousands of years, octopuses use coconut shells as both camouflage and as protection, and dolphins use sponges to help uncover fish that are hiding in the sand. As for language, bees have an incredibly complex language system allowing them to communicate what type of flower is located in a given place and how to get to that location. Monkeys not only communicate with one another vocally, but they even understand grammar rules. In fact, in some ways, animals are actually ahead of us in the language game. While humans cannot yet speak the language of any other animals, primates can be taught sign language so they can communicate with us in our own language. Image via Mundoo [Flickr] If this crushed your memories of grade school, I’m sorry, but now it’s your turn to get revenge. What have you learned isn’t true even though they told you it was a “fact” back in school?
Jeff Horn conducted a two-year study for his master's thesis at the University of Illinois on roaming cats. For the study, 42 adult cats were fitted with electronics to trace their movements. Cats with owners had an average roaming territory of 4.9 acres, while feral cats roamed a much wider territory. One feral cat covered 1,351 acres! Data was also retrieved that showed owned cats were "highly active" only 3% of the time, compared to 14% for feral cats. That is very low, especially for an animal that must forage for food, but should not surprise anyone who knows cats. Link -via Pawesome
In this anxiety-inducing video, you can see shark expert Valerie Taylor feeding a Great White Shark...by hand! And the end, she actually pets the shark on the head. As one YouTube commenter puts it "holy crap its the Shark Whisperer."
Playing for Change, the folks who brought us "Stand By Me" a couple of years ago, traveled the world to bring many artists together for a performance of the Rolling Stones classic "Gimme Shelter." http://www.playingforchange.com/ -via Gizmodo
Sam "No Nickname" Saxton makes vertical ambigrams with illustrations that read the same whether you hold them right side up or upside down. He's given the treatment to presidents, pop culture figures, and even Star Wars characters! Link
Well, I thought that the DIY vasectomy kit that we sell in the NeatoShop would have been sufficient, but apparently some men are looking for alternate solutions in the field of contraception. Namely, one that isn't so permanent. An Indian researcher named Sujoy Guha thinks that he's found the solution. Here's how the procedure works:
Once the drug had taken effect, Das gathered a fold of skin, made a puncture, and reached into the scrotum with a fine pair of forceps. He extracted a white tube: the vas deferens, which sperm travel through from the testes to the penis. In a normal vasectomy, Das would have severed the vas, cauterized and tied up the ends, and tucked it all back inside. But rather than snipping, Das took another syringe, delicately slid the needle lengthwise into the vas, and slowly depressed the plunger, injecting a clear, viscous liquid. He then repeated the steps on the other side of the scrotum.
This liquid doesn't block the path of sperm cells exiting the testicles, but renders them inert as they move past. This substance should be removable, thus returning fertility to the patient. You can watch a video of the procedure at the link. Content warning: scrotum.
Link via DVICE | Photo by Flickr user aesop used under Creative Commons license
According to a study by the American College of Sports Medicine, it's the Minneapolis-St.Paul metropolitan area, followed by Washington, D.C.:
Their winning rank reflects the cities' relatively low (and rapidly-diminishing) smoking rate, their above-average percentage of regular exercisers, moderate-to-low rates of obesity, asthma, diabetes, and other chronic concerns, and rising share of farmers' markets (indicative of a trend towards healthier dining). Boston takes the bronze, with Portland, Oregon fourth and Denver in fifth place. At the opposite end of the spectrum, Oklahoma City ranks as America's least fit metro, followed by Louisville, Memphis, Birmingham, and Detroit.
Link via Marginal Revolution | Photo (unrelated) by Flickr user Jason Lengstorf used under Creative Commons license
I have no information about this young lady, but it is obvious that she is very fortunate to have found a man of such discerning taste and character. "Aye aye, sir" would be an appropriate response.
If there was a Nobel Prize for Awesomeness, Jörg Sprave would win it easily. And why isn't there such a Nobel Prize? The mere existence of this weapon alone justifies its creation.
Sprave, noted for his pioneering research into Gatling gun slingshot technology, now worked on the circular sawblade challenge. How did he ensure that the sawblade spins properly while in flight? Watch and find out.
Also featuring Abraham Lincoln as Frida Kahlo and Andrew Jackson as Ronald McDonald. James Charles has made some slight adjustments to US currency. These are on display at The Shooting Gallery in San Francisco, as well as at the link.
One of Freddie Wong's best short films was Jedi A-Holes -- a brief glimpse into the world of criminally miscreant Jedi. He's back with the same theme, and the same two Jedi knights causing mischief in their town.
