On November 15, 1959, Herb and Bonnie Clutter and two of their four children were murdered in Holcomb, Kansas. This crime was later chronicled in Truman Capote's book In Cold Blood and in four movies. The Guardian takes a look back at the crime, the book written about it, and how the town of Holcomb has dealt with its notoriety for 50 years. Some of the townspeople welcomed the attention; others wish everyone would stay away. Bob Rupp, the last townsperson to see the Clutters alive, and who erected a memorial plaque honoring the family, has his own opinion.

Bob Rupp has a third view. He says he has never read In Cold Blood, nor seen the movies, and never will. But he believes that Capote was unfair to the Clutters, because he left to posterity a memory of them that is dominated by the gruesome manner of their deaths rather than the wonderful accomplishments of their lives. He still thinks about the Clutters often, hence his idea for the memorial.

Link -via Metafilter

Anyone who takes digital pictures gets a real kick out of how crime investigators on the CSI TV shows use their computers to zoom in and enhance photographs, as if you could really zoom in to just a few pixels and see a legible image. Now you can! The CSI Image Enhancer lets you zoom in on a photograph just by typing furiously and saying "enhance!" Well, really, all you have to do is type furiously. Try this one as an example. Upload your own photos to make a personal enhancement of your own. Link -via b3ta

(image found at Arbroath)

Most people outside Scandinavia would have a hard time naming more than two Vikings if you asked them. Sure, you're familiar with Eric the Red and his son Lief Ericson, but have you ever heard of Egil Skallagrimsson, who killed many but still found time to write poetry? Or how about Freydis Ericsdottr, who held her own with the male warriors? Then there's Ivar the Boneless, who invaded England to avenge his father's death.

I should mention that Ivar the Boneless got his sweet nickname because he had a degenerative disease that left him unable to stand, and not because he needed to talk to his doctor about Cialis or anything like that. However, as a badass medieval sea-raiding shitwrecker, Ivar wasn’t going to let a little thing like “not being able to use his legs” stop him from raining death on his enemies at every turn.

In this manner, Ivar killed two kings and captured a large part of the British Isles. Link

Scientists are working on unconventional methods for controlling neurons in the brain. In one such experiment, a mouse's behavior was controlled by shining a light directly on its brain! But this was no ordinary brain -the mouse had DNA from algae inserted into its neurons, which made them responsive to light. The crucial part of these experiments is making the new genes active in only certain types of neurons, depending on the outcome we are looking for. Stanford psychiatrist Karl Deisseroth and his team are experimenting with optogenetics to help victims of Parkinson's disease, starting with mice.

Many experts had thought the cure was to stimulate certain kinds of cells within the subthalamic nucleus, which coordinates motion. But when they tried that, it had no effect whatsoever. Then two of Deisseroth’s grad students began experimenting with a dark-horse idea. They stimulated neurons near the surface of the brain that send signals into the subthalamic nucleus — a much harder approach because it meant working at one remove. It was as if, instead of using scissors yourself, you had to guide someone else’s hands to make the cuts.

Their idea worked. The mice walked. In their paper, published in April 2009, they wrote that the “effects were not subtle; indeed, in nearly every case these severely parkinsonian animals were restored to behavior indistinguishable from normal.”

Other experiments on rhesus monkeys show promise. The team is now designing ways to make optogenetics safe and effective for humans. Link

(image credit: Justin Wood)

There is some evidence that peeling a hard-boiled egg is not as easy as it was a couple of decades ago. The reason why might surprise you -older eggs are easier to peel, and the eggs we eat are fresher than ever! As an egg ages, it loses both moisture and carbon dioxide, which causes the air bubble between the shell and the membrane to get bigger. A bigger air pocket makes eggs easier to peel.

While I’ve noticed the Peeling Problem most distinctly with superfresh farm eggs, the eggs you buy at the supermarket could be getting fresher too. Most American eggs are produced and distributed by agribusiness concerns like Cal-Maine and Rose Acre, which each have more than 20 million hens cranking out eggs just for you.

Statistics on the time it takes for an egg to go from hen to supermarket have not been calculated, a USDA representative told Wired.com, but there’s some reason to believe that new production techniques could be delivering eggs to markets faster.

A 1998 report by the agency found that big consolidated chicken egg facilities, which wash and package the eggs on-site instead of sending them to a separate processing location, could reduce the time from farm to store from 100 hours to 53 hours. And, according to Cal-Maine’s SEC filings, the industry continues to centralize, squeezing out the old facilities in favor of the new ones.

So if you are going to use hard-boiled eggs in your Thanksgiving dishes, you might want to purchase your eggs soon. Link -via Unique Daily

Fiat Lux is a lamp with a switch that hovers underneath -no strings attached! The ball-shaped switch is magnetic, and rests on the lamp when not in use. When you approach the lamp, it turns itself on. Then you "hang" the switch underneath, where it levitates by magnetic force. Move the switch to turn the lamp off. Designed by Constance Guisset and Grégory Cid. http://www.constanceguisset.com/?page_id=35 -via Metafilter

A tree snail found in the tropical forest near Cairns, Australia has been named after the late Steve Irwin. Dr. John Stanisic of the Queensland Museum named it Crikey steveirwini.

The scientist described Crikey steveirwini as "a colourful snail, with swirling bands of creamy yellow, orange-brown and chocolate giving the shell an overall khaki appearance".

"It was the khaki colour that immediately drew the connection to the late Crocodile Hunter," Dr Stanisic said.

Link -via Arbroath

(video link)

National Geographic's Adventure Magazine named ten people as Adventurers of the Year, and invite you to rate each of them to help them determine the readers' choice top adventurer. One of the profiles features 37-year-old Dean S. Potter, rock climber, tightrope walker, and BASE jumper. Potter set a world record in 2009 by jumping off a high face of Switzerland's Eiger in a wingsuit and sailing for almost three minutes! The trip was 9,000 feet vertically and four miles horizontally. Links to all adventurers. Link to voting. -Thanks, Ethan!

Get ready for a strange story of a lost Beatles album found on cassette on the other side of a portal to a parallel universe. James Richards brought the cassette back and is making all the songs available. Link -via YesButNoButYes

Think before you buy a souvenir snow globe on your next vacation. You probably won't be able to take it on a plane in your carry-on luggage because of TSA regulations.

"Snow globes are not permitted to be carried through security checkpoints," said Transportation Security Administration spokesman Dwayne Baird.

The reason is that the globes contain liquids, and TSA rules say that only liquids, gels or aerosols in containers of three ounces or less are allowed through security in carry-on bags.

Even a small snow globe with less than three ounces of liquid may be confiscated because security personnel have no way of measuring it. You can pack a snow globe in your checked luggage, but be careful to pad it well, or you may end up with wet clothing by the time you reach your destination. Link -via Metafilter

(image by Flickr user revrev)

Some people eat at their computers. Some smoke while computing. And some don't change the filter on their heating and air system as often as they should. Many of us never open up our computers to see what's inside, but that's the first thing your computer repair expert will do. If your PC is anything like these computers, the next thing he/she will do is take a picture. The Register has six pages of these dirty, filthy pictures. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/13/ventblockers/ -via Digg

(Live Leak link)

In the original Ninja Cat video, the cat only moves when you're not looking. In this new video, the camera is stationery so we can see how he moves only when his "prey" (a feather in this incident) can't see him. -via Arbroath

This 11-month old baby isn't even their youngest customer! The ad copy also says:

By the way, Mom, when it comes to toddlers- if they liked to be coaxed to drink their milk, try this: add 7-Up to the milk in equal parts, pouring the 7-Up gently into the milk. It's a wholesome combination- and it works!

Click the picture at Kitchen Retro to see the full-size version of this and other vintage ads. Link -via J-Walk Blog

Newsweek Magazine has begun a series of stories looking back at the first decade of the new millennium. In this list, the most-watched crime stories are ranked and summarized. If the complicated developments of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme or the hunt for the D.C. Snipers were hard to follow in real time, you can catch up on the important details. Pictured is Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children in 2001. http://2010.newsweek.com/top-10/mesmerizing-crime-stories/rod-blagojevich-saga.html# -via the Presurfer

(YouTube link)

A road crew and a television crew were on the scene on Highway 64 in Polk County, Tennessee Tuesday when a massive rock slide covered the road. Workers were busy removing a large rock that fell Tuesday morning when the mountain gave away at about 1PM. Rock slides are not uncommon in the mountain area of East Tennessee, but they are rarely seen in progress, much less recorded. The road will be closed for at least a week. Link