Pigeons not so bird-brained after all
The much-maligned pigeon was recently found by researchers to be as skilled as humans at distinguishing between slides of benign versus malignant human breast tissue. Writing in the journal PLOS ONE, specialists from the University of Iowa and University of California, Davis lauded the birds' processing of colour, contrast, brightness, and image compression, marvelling that pigeons see more wavelengths of light than humans, even though their brains are one-thousandth the size. (Birds are already known to distinguish "hostile" humans in celebrated dive-pecking incidents.) (Source: News of the weird.com)
Robber loses tug-of-war
A near-certain robbery of the PNC Bank in Zebulon, North Carolina, on January 28 was prevented, with employees treated to an almost-slapstick scene in which the bank manager kept the suspect outside by winning a tug-of-war for the front door. The manager had grabbed the door after noticing an armed, masked man approaching from the parking lot just after the bank opened. (The frustrated perp fled empty-handed but was at large.)
