Heist

Classic Yeomanry Artifact Heist

The stranded sheep has been saved! Also, a museum heist goes down just as you wish it would, science people did research on how your nose smells things, protests around the world call for a ceasefire, and remember to mind yourself in the King's forest.

Endeavorance

06 Nov 2023 — 4 min read

Some Good News For Ya

Remember a few issues back, when I talked about the sheep that was stranded for two years at the foot of a cliff in Scotland? Well, I'm legit thrilled to tell you that the sheep has since been rescued thanks to the coordinated efforts of five farmers who hauled her up a steep slope.

They named her "Fiona," and turns out she is in shockingly great condition, and just need a good shave and some love. Otherwise, she's apparently doing pretty well!

Fiona has been taken to a safe place to rest and recover, get a good sheering, and hopefully lots of love.

A small note here though, it does seem that they plan to eventually move Fiona to a petting zoo. While I get the sentiment there, it would be a pretty stressful environment for an animal who just spent multiple years in isolation. There is a petition requesting she instead goes to a sanctuary, you can sign it here if you'd like.

We 👏 Love 👏 A 👏 Good 👏 Heist 👏

Y'all, I've got a real one for ya.

"Priceless" items have been stolen from the Royal Lancers & Nottinghamshire Yeomanry Museum. That is a HELLUVA mouthful, but y'all. Y'ALL.

The thieves straight up did the "cut a hole in the floor" thing. Like, y'all. I'm not making this up.

Museum staff referred to it as "audacious" and well organized. Thieves drilled a hole in floor beneath a display case, used a camera to survey what was in there, then expanded the hole to reach in and grab shit.

What was stolen? Stuff that I have absolutely no context for. Important Yeomanry artifacts, presumably. But let's not lose sight of the main point here: people are out there pulling off some Looney-Tunes-ass heists.

Smell ASMR Incoming

A recently published scientific paper found that the human brain can be seen processing smell "in stereo."

Medical Science People did some Medical Science during operations on volunteers with epilepsy. They slapped some wires onto people's brains and used a tool to deliver smells to one nostril at a time, then measured the brain activity in real time while the patient sniffed the good sniff.

What they found was that when delivering a smell into one nostril, the brain would begin processing the smell on one side, then as the smell made its way more faintly to the other nostril, the brain would begin processing on the other side as well. Two nostrils, two smell analysis centers, working together to identify smells.

Now, unlike hearing, where your ears help you locate things, the nostrils don't seem to be particularly capable of identifying directionality of smells. But we may now have better insight into how our brain identifies and then verifies what we're smelling by using 100% of your nostrils.

An Update on Gaza

Section content warning: Non-graphic discussion of mass death, dead children, and war.

Over the weekend, massive protests broke out calling for a ceasefire in major cities such as Washington DC, London, Berlin, and Paris. The Pope also tweeted being like "y'all, what the fuck, stop killing people." The protests come as Israel continues to hammer the Gaza Strip with airstrikes, raising the death toll for Palestinian people near 10,000 human beings, nearly half of which were children.

Israel has staunchly refused to consider a ceasefire, even for humanitarian reasons. Over the weekend, Israel launched an airstrike against a refugee camp within the region they told Palestinians to flee to, killing 40 human beings and wounding dozens more. On-the-ground reporters from the Associated Press report seeing multiple dead children from the blast.

Most Western countries, especially the United States, stand firmly behind Israel politically, providing billions upon billions of dollars of military equipment for the state.

In the US, both Republicans and Democrats have expressed support for Israel, with the Republican house recently passing a $14.3 Billion aid package for Israel. Biden said he would veto the package, but only because of the way it is funded. Biden is still seeking a double-digit billion dollar price tag for aid to Israel.

On This day…

On this day in 1217, the Charter of the Forest was issued in St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

After William the Conqueror and his heirs had expanded what was known as the "royal forest"—a large natural area which was restricted to use of monarchs—to include nearly a third of southern England, the Charter of the Forest re-opened the land for use by commoners. Foraging, firewood collection, and farming were becoming increasingly difficult for commoners as the monarchy claimed more and more land for itself.

Oh, it also repealed the death penalty for hunting a deer in the forest. That's the King's deer, my dude.