Thief has a heart

Amsterdam, May 21 (Reuters): A Dutch thief left an apologetic letter and promised a donation after he realised he was burgling a charity that helps the poor and elderly.

The thief’s remorseful handwritten letter praised charity group Humanitas for its work and agonised over the effect the burglary would have on his conscience. “I have only eaten some biscuits from the tin and some Easter eggs. When I’m less hard up I will make a small contribution to your account,” said the account of the letter published on the Humanitas website (www.humanitas.nl).

Humanitas said it has no plans to file a police report on the break-in at its office in Arnhem, near the German border. “Of course it’s a nuisance there was a burglary, but it leaves a good feeling that there are still good thieves,” the website said.

Brain strain

Berlin (Reuters): Women watching erotic films are stimulated in a part of the brain associated with planning and emotion, research from scientists in Germany said on Friday. When scientists from Essen University put volunteers in a brain scanning tube and showed them pornography they found both men and women showed activity in the temporal lobes linked to memory and perception, but only women used their frontal lobes. Unfortunately the researchers were not able to determine if their findings meant that while men lost themselves in the moment the busy modern professional woman was also planning her wardrobe, scheduling the vacation and juggling her tax receipts. “We don’t know why these differences between men and women exist. They just do,” said institute director Michael Forsting.