West Midlands police in Birmingham, UK have posted this hilarious video of a thief trying to steal a commemorative WWI piece of artwork to YouTube.

Spotted by Digg, the video is from security cameras at the Castle Fine Art Gallery on the 17th of August. According to the West Midlands Police website, the gallery staff stopped the thief as he left and recovered the poorly concealed artwork. 

The man in the video, however, left unpunished. Police have now released the security footage on Wednesday to try and discover the would-be thief’s identity.  

Investigating officer PC Patrick Higgins said in a statement: “The thief was quite optimistic in his attempts to conceal the artwork, valued at several hundred pounds, but fortunately he made off empty handed. We are now keen to identify the man in the CCTV to prevent him from turning his attention to smaller objects." 

Watch the full (unintentionally funny) video below.

And in case you were curious, this is what he was trying to steal.

SEE ALSO: 19 New Works Of Art That Have The World Buzzing

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Larry Ellison is stepping down as CEO of Oracle. 

In honor of his long career, let's take a look back at his life. 

Ellison is a true rags-to-riches story. After growing up in a poor neighborhood in Chicago, he decided to drop out of college and drive across the country to California, where he would found Oracle. 

He now has a net worth of $51.3 billion and the fabulous lifestyle to go along with it.

He's been called "the nation's most avid trophy-home buyer" and has all but taken over entire neighborhoods in Malibu and the Lake Tahoe area. He even purchased the entire Hawaiian island of Lanai for an estimated $300 million in 2012. He also has an amazing collection of supercars, planes, and yachts.

Ellison was born on August 17, 1944, on the Lower East Side of New York City. After he contracted pneumonia as a baby, his mother was unable to care for him, and instead sent him to live with her aunt and uncle on the South Side of Chicago. He has never met his birth father, and didn't even know he was adopted until much later in life.

Source: CNN

He went on to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, but dropped out after his second year. After spending a summer in northern California, he decided to transfer to the University of Chicago, where he first studied computer design. He left there after one semester and moved to California in 1966, at the age of 22.

Even from a young age, Ellison had a taste for flashy cars. Before moving out to California, he went out and bought himself a turquoise Thunderbird that he thought would make a good impression on new acquaintances. He used it to drive the thousand-mile journey to his new home in Berkeley.

Source: Bloomberg News, YouTube

Tom Brady publicly posted a photo of his post-college resume on Thursday, showing the world just how close he came to working a normal job.

It's easy to forgot how unlikely Brady's rise to the top of the American sports pyramid really was. He was taken in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL draft, 199th overall.

Now he's the NFL's biggest celebrity with massive endorsement deals, a wildly successful significant other, and the ability to build $40-million mansions from scratch as a side job.

Brady earned $38 million in 2013, making him the 11th highest-paid athlete in the world.

Source: Forbes

A huge chunk of that came from a $30 million signing bonus he got from his unusual new Patriots contract.

Source: PFT

The contract was designed to help the Patriots salary cap situation. As a result, Brady will only be paid $2 million in 2014.

Up to this point, many weight loss options outside of normal diet and exercise plans tend to be quite intrusive and require major surgery. This one is changing the game.

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The Russian firm Oasis Beverages has entered into an agreement to buy the iconic American brewer Pabst Brewing Company, in partnership with TSG Consumer Partners, an American private-equity firm.

PBC brews Pabst Blue Ribbon, the beer that has made a comeback over the last decade thanks to a dedicated cult following. The company, which has been in existence since 1844, also makes other popular brands like Colt 45, Schlitz, and Old Milwaukee. It now partners with Oasis, the largest independent brewer in Russia.

"Pabst Blue Ribbon is the quintessential American brand – it represents individualism, egalitarianism, and freedom of expression – all the things that make this country great," Eugene Kashper, the chairman of Oasis Beverages, said in a statement.

"The opportunity to work with the company’s treasure trove of iconic brands, some of which I started my career selling, is a dream come true. It will be an honor to work with Pabst's dedicated employees and partner distributors as we continue to build the business."

Kashper said the company would continue to be based out of Los Angeles. Precise terms of the deal weren't immediately disclosed.

"We are delighted at Mr. Kashper's and TSG's strong commitment to growing the unique Pabst portfolio, and we are very supportive of the new ownership group and their exciting plans for the future," said Dean Metropoulos, a current co-owner of PBC.

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BI Answers: What is the most powerful thing in the universe?

The most mind-boggling explosion you can imagine doesn't come close to what the universe can create. When stars 150 times the size of our sun explode, they produce the brightest light sources in the universe and release as much energy in a few seconds as our Sun will produce over its entire lifetime of 10 billion years.

That's about the same amount of energy in 10 trillion trillion billion megaton bombs!

These explosions generate beams of high-energy radiation, called gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), which are considered by astronomers to be the most powerful thing in the universe. What's more, these GRBs could be killing our chances of ever discovering life on other planets.

Hopeful scientists say that we are not alone in the universe, but if that is true, then where the heck is everyone? One explanation could be that life in the universe is truly rare because GRBs are sterilizing the cosmos.

GRBs are a stunning burst of radiation consisting of beams of gamma radiation that usually last seconds to a few minutes but can last as long as a few hours.

On Earth, gamma radiation is generated from radioactive decay of elements and is extremely hazardous to living beings.

These super-intense beams of gamma radiation — the gamma-ray bursts — are created by the most powerful type of stellar explosion: a hypernova.

Hypernovae are a more spectacular version of the better-known supernova — a massive explosion of light and energy that occurs when a high-mass star implodes. When that happens, the explosion launches massive amounts of harmful gamma radiation into space at very high speeds.

If your home planet is in the way, say hello to a mass, if not complete, extinction. Events like these could, however, be sterilizing the universe. If other planets are anything like Earth, then it will take billions of years of evolution to reach the point at which life on other planets is intelligent and technically advanced enough to build spaceships that can escape their solar system and explore other worlds.

If a GRB occurs at any point during that society's evolution, the chances of intelligent life on other planets is much lower than we think. This issue is known as the Fermi paradox.

Gamma ray bursts are the brightest light sources in the universe and were first discovered by accident at the height of the Cold War. In the late 1960s, the U.S. dispatched a series of military satellites that monitored space for any evidence of residual gamma radiation from nuclear testing by the Soviets. The satellites did find gamma radiation, but from sources millions and billions of light years away.

Because they are so bright, we can observe GRBs at incredibly far distances at all corners of the universe. We detect on average one GRB every day, which means that a single galaxy should see one burst every 100,000 to one million years, which is rare even by cosmic standards.

Our home galaxy, the Milky Way, has never experienced a GRB, as far as we know. The most likely candidate for a GRB in our galaxy is about 7,500 light years away — a safe distance from Earth but close enough to potentially be bright enough that night will seem like day.

This post is part of a continuing series that answers all of your "why" questions related to science. Have your own question? Email science@businessinsider.com with the subject line "Q&A"; tweet your question to @BI_Science; or post to our Facebook page.

READ MORE: The Surprising Reason Men Have Bigger Noses Than Women

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MIT had been the king of colleges on our list of the Best Colleges in America for the last four years in a row, but this year Stanford University came out on top.

But what's the opinion of folks who work in the finance world?

The same, it turns out, Stanford University is still the best college in America, according to people who work in the finance industry. MIT was still ranked No. 2.

We asked over 1,500 professionals who have hiring experience to rate the reputations of graduates from top colleges around the country.

When we filtered the results to only include responses from people who said that they work in the finance industry, the results only varied slightly from our main list. The top two schools stayed the same, but several schools moved up in the ranks, including UPenn (No. 6), which was ranked at No. 9 on our main list and Duke (No. 10), which was No. 19 on the overall list.

Here are the top 15 colleges according to people in finance, along with their scores out of 5:

1. Stanford University (4.08)
2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (3.96)
3. Princeton University (3.79)
4. California Institute of Technology (3.76)
5. Harvard University (3.72)
6. University of Pennsylvania (3.70)
7. Yale University (3.66)
8. Columbia University (3.61)
9. University of Chicago (3.57)
10. Duke University (3.56)
11. Dartmouth College (3.50)
12. Cornell University (3.49)
13. U.S. Naval Academy (3.47)
14. Carnegie Mellon University (3.41)
15. U.S. Military Academy (3.38)

DON'T MISS: The 50 Best Colleges In America

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The world will never be the same — there is now a one-piece suit concept called “The Suitsy.” 

Spotted on GQ, San Francisco-native Jesse Herzog is seeking funding for his suit onesie on Betabrand, an online clothing design community that designs, manufactures, and releases new retail products.

The shirt is connected to the jacket and the pants at the waist. There is a false sleeve to give gentlemen the appearance of a shirt cuff as well as a zipper hidden behind the shirt’s fake buttons to zip up the front of the suit.

“Imagine looking professional but feeling like you are in pajamas,” Herzog’s proposal reads. “Consider wearing a suit and a onesie at the same time.”

But perhaps the weirdest part about The Suitsy is that it doesn’t look that bad, all things considered. Many of the commenters are enthusiastic, with some cautiously wondering how men would use the bathroom.

The Suitsy currently has 375 votes on Betabrand with 27 days left to go. Only time will tell if this will become a reality.

SEE ALSO: 8 Men’s Fashion Trends You'll See This Fall

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The Cold War and nuclear arms race may never have erupted into a full-blown nuclear war, but it still resulted in destruction and irreparable damage to the environment. 

Nuclear testing, primarily at sites in the former Soviet Union, left behind a trail of radiation, chemical debris, and poisoned citizens. The locations, many of which were in Kazakhstan, were some of the most secret and well-guarded locations in the Soviet Union, until its collapse in 1991. 

While researching a project on large Russian cities, photographer Nadav Kander discovered some of the testing sites on Google Earth. Fascinated by their secrecy, Kander set out to find what was left. There wasn't much. Most had been destroyed after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Kander shared a number of the photos with us here, but you can see the rest on display at the Flowers Gallery in London. "Dust," a book of the photographs, will be released on October 31st. 

Kurchatov in Eastern Kazakhstan used to be the center of operations for the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. It was a "closed city," meaning no one could enter or exit the city without proper authorization.Kurchatov was also a "science" city, built by gulag labor and named after the Russian physicist tasked with producing the atomic bomb. At its heyday, the population was over 20,000, composed of scientists, engineers, physicists, military personnel and those who worked at the nuclear facilities. It was one of the most secretive places in the Soviet Union.The Semipalatinsk Test Site, also know as "The Polygon," was the primary testing site for Soviet nuclear weapons. Located near Kurchatov, the Soviet Union conducted 456 nuclear tests in the area from 1949 to 1989, with little regard for radiation exposure to citizens. The Soviet Union never informed nearby citizens of the nuclear tests or their potential exposure. Instead, scientists secretly observed the effects of radiation on people in the area. To this day, the area near the Polygon has one of the highest occurrences of cancer in the world.Though the site was closed in 1992, large amounts of radioactive material were left behind, virtually unguarded. Over the course of 17 years, Kazakh, Russian, and American scientists completed a $150 million operation to secure the material.Lake Chagan, also called Atomic Lake, is a lake created by the Chagan underground nuclear test in 1965. The water from the lake comes from the Chagan River. It is still radioactive. Moscow 10, now known as Priozersk, Kazakhstan, was founded in 1953 as a secret military base to test and develop the Soviet missile defense system. It was occupied by the Soviet military.Priozersk is still closed to the public and continues to be leased by the Russian military. The military uses it as a testing site to improve anti-ballistic and anti-aircraft defense systems.Some of Russia's greatest academics, engineers, and physicists lived in Priozersk. Most of the military buildings in the town have been leveled to hide its secret past.The Aral Sea used to be one of the four largest lakes in the world. Over the course of 50 years, it has shrunk to a tenth of its size, thanks to a number of Soviet irrigation projects that diverted water from the area. One of the islands in the Aral Sea was the site of a Russian chemical weapons factory, adding to the toxicity of the area. Water from the sea was diverted for the cultivation of cotton and other crops. The project was a failure, however, as much of the water was swallowed by the desert, leaving behind a dusty plane full of salt and toxic chemicals. Many Soviet projects have left a devastating legacy on the landscape, just like this one.

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As the 2014-2015 school year settles into a steady grind for students across the country, WalletHub has come out with a list of the most and least educated cities in the U.S.

The social finance site analyzed 150 of America's largest cities, looking at two major categories: "education level" and "quality of education," They broke those categories into nine metrics such as the higher educational degrees of the adult population, number of doctors per capita, and the ranking of their public schools, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, GreatSchools.org and U.S. News & World Report. 

Ann Arbor, Michigan took the top spot, followed by Raleigh, North Carolina, and Durham, North Carolina. The least educated city among the top 150 was Beaumont, Texas. 

Here are the top 25:

See all the rankings on WalletHub's interactive map:

WalletHub also measured those statistics against annual median household incomes for the city, and found the 50 cities with highest income and high education levels.

Washington D.C. took the spot with the highest education level and highest income, while McAllen, Texas ranked last.

Here's that graph:

SEE ALSO: The 50 Best Colleges In America

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We went to check out the line of people waiting to buy the new iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus at Apple's flagship store in New York City. People are still willing to wait long hours, or even days, to purchase the latest model from the official store. 

Produced by Alex Kuzoian.

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Summer is winding down, but there's plenty to look forward to in London this fall. 

From strolling through Shoreditch to check out edgy new street art to eating at the city's best restaurants during the London Restaurant Festival, here are the best things to do in London this fall.

Did we miss your favorite London fall activity? Sound off in the comments below.

Stroll through Shoreditch and check out the edgy street art all over the hipster neighborhood.

Learn more about street art in East London >

Get a glimpse into some of London's most exclusive residences, which will open their doors to the public during Open House weekend, from Sept. 21 to 22.

Learn more about Open House London >

Eat at a great restaurant during the London Restaurant Festival, Oct. 8-27, when restaurants all over the city offer special menus and events.

Learn more about the London Restaurant Festival >

Quick: Who should pay on a first date?

If you said "the guy," you're in the majority. In a NerdWallet study of people in relationships who had been living together for at least six months, 77% of respondents said that men should pay on the first date. It's worth noting, however, that whether these respondents are in hetero or homosexual relationships isn't specified.

Apparently, this doesn't change as time goes on. When asked who pays on "date night," 56% of men said they pay, along with 0% of women (yes, zero). There are a good number of couples splitting the bill, though: 40% of men and 41% of women say they split the check on date night.

Check out the infographic below to see what else the study uncovered:

SEE ALSO: Why You Should Keep Your Money Separate From Your Spouse

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How's this for a menu of dream cars?

Aston Martin V8 Vantage? Check. Maserati GranCabrio? Of course. Mercedes-Benz SL63 AMG? Yep. Porsche 911 4S Cabriolet? Why not. Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder. Oh yeah. Ferrari 458 Italia? What's dinner without dessert!

Driving even one of these sublime cars would make for a exhilarating day. 

But I got to sample all 6 of them in the span of about 6 hours.

"What," you might ask, "was the auspicious occasion?"

A friend of Business Insider invited me to join him on a "Dream Car Tour" that a colleague had won in a charity auction. The Tour was conducted by Gotham Dream Cars, a company that rents high-performance luxury cars and, for $895, will put you behind the wheel of 6 different hot, hot, smokin' hot cars in a single day.

The Tour — conducted at legal speeds and carefully supervised by Gotham Dream Cars' expert, experienced staff — took us through the highways and byways of the New York-New Jersey area. 

See if you can guess which car I liked the most.

There's nothing quite like being in a garage full of Ferraris.

The GDC staff knows these cars well — because they have to maintain them.

And what else would they be watching on TV besides the hit BBC car show "Top Gear?"

Whenever Apple launches a new gadget, there's always a ridiculously long line outside its stores. With the iPhone 6 launch, there were people waiting outside the flagship Apple store on 5th Avenue for as long as 18 days. We decided to try to get the iPhone 6 without waiting in a massive line.

Produced by Will Wei

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If you want to do get to the top of your class or climb the ladder at work, you give yourself a gigantic advantage over everybody else if you can recall more information at a faster speed. 

Developmental psychologists and cognitive scientists have found range of factors that help do just that — and some of them are pretty weird. 

Here are a few. 

Reading physical books will improve your memory of what you read, since memory is also tactile. 

We usually think of reading as a totally visual exercise; after all, it's just your eyes scanning the page, right? 

Not quite. Turns out that we remember things better when we read them in a more physical form, like say, for instance, a book. It's because the experience of reading is also tactile. When you're reading a book, you're also holding it, feeling the heft of it in your hands. As you read through the text, the pages move from your right hand to your left, redistributing the weight of the book. Research suggests that your brain uses this movement of weight as an anchor of memory. 

A happy marriage lets you "distribute" your memory tasks between you and your partner. 

In news that will delight monogamists everywhere, research shows that people in long-term relationships have several memory benefits stemming from their couplehood — like recalling people's names or what happened at events. 

When two people are in an intimate, long-term relationship, they distribute the responsibilities of thinking in the same way that they split up household chores.

One psych writer observed that a couple isn't just two individuals spending lots of time together, but a "socially distributed cognitive system." Put in plain English, two heads really are better than one. 

A little "expressive writing" will free up your mental resources, thus improving your ability to recall. 

For 30 years, psychologists have been studying "expressive writing" — writing about difficult experiences for at least 15 minutes. Experiments show the introspective exercise is much more than just navel gazing. People who regularly write expressively have lower blood pressure, higher productivity, and a greater sense of personal well-being.

North Carolina State University psychologist Kitty Klein has shown that expressive writing increases memory, too. Her explanation: Expressive writing lets people disclose thoughts they otherwise spend mental energy trying to avoid, allowing more energy to be allocated toward memory. 

A walk through the woods will put you at ease — and improve your memory.

University of Michigan psychologists asked two groups of experiment participants to go for walks. One group walked around an urban environment, and the others wandered around a forest. Then they were given a recall test. The folks who sauntered among the trees performed 20% better on the memory test. 

Connecting what you just learned with what you already know will strengthen your memory. 

Washington University cognitive scientists Henry L. Roediger III and Mark A. McDaniel co-authored "Make It Stick," a masterful book on the way we learn. The book's got tons of great takeaways, but the most immediate are approaches for training memory. One of those techniques is elaboration— the process of connecting novel information to what you already know. 

"The more you can explain about the way your new learning relates to prior knowledge," the authors write, "the stronger your grasp of the new learning will be, and the more connections you create that will help you remember it later." 

Say, for example, you're learning about heat transference. Instead of memorizing the definition — heat moves from a hot object to a cooler object — you could use an example the way that the heat from a hot cup of cocoa warms up your hand on a chilly winter's day. 

SEE ALSO: 7 Memory Skills That Will Make You Way Smarter

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Bill Gates is worth an astounding $81.6 billion and he keeps getting richer every year.

His secret weapon is a man you have probably never heard of: Michael Larson.

Gates hired Larson 20 years ago, when his net worth was a relatively paltry $5 billion, report Anupreeta Das and Craig Karmin at the Wall Street Journal, who just wrote a profile on the notoriously secretive Larson.

Larson runs Gates' personal investment company Cascade Investment LLC, funded solely by Gates.

At one time, Gates wealth depended solely on Microsoft. But for years he's been selling off his Microsoft stake. The common perception is that he's been using the proceeds from those sales directly for charity. That's not entirely how it works.

Although Gates makes his own investments in tech, it is Larson, through Cascade, who has taken Gate's money and diversified it. Gates now has vast holdings in real estate and non-tech companies like the Canadian National Railway Co., AutoNation Inc., and Republic Services Inc. It is these vast holdings that help fund the Gates' donations.

And although Gates has given an astounding $38 billion to his charitable foundation, thanks to Larson, he's getting richer faster than he can give his money away.

His $81.6 billion is nearly $6 billion more than it was as of March 2014, when he was worth $76 billion, we reported at the time. And $76 billion was $9 billion more than he was worth in March, 2013.

In February, Gates celebrated 20 years of this partnership by throwing a gala to honor Larson at his Seattle mansion, reports the WSJ. It was a rare occasion where the two men socialized with each other. Apparently, they aren't buddies and don't hang out much, sources told the Journal.

At the party, Gates told guests he has "complete trust and faith" in Larson, meaning that Larson invests Gates' money, buying and selling, with completely autonomy.

And he does it all under a cover of such ferocious secrecy that he's been nicknamed "the Gateskeeper."

Although publicly traded companies do reveal when Cascade has invested heavily in them, Larson has all sorts of tricks for keeping Cascade's and Bill Gate's names out of other investments, sources told the Journal.

For instance, he makes employees sign confidentiality agreements which cover them even after they leave. He farms out more than $10 billion to up to 25 outside money managers. This helps him find new investment ideas, but it also helps cover the trail. When Cascade was part of an investment group that bought the Ritz-Carlton hotel in San Francisco, the publicist didn't even know Cascade, and Bill Gates, was among them.

He's also been known to fire up a limited Limited Liability Corporation to make real estate purchases, to keep Cascade's name off the deal and the deed.

He's so good at hiding the trail that most people don't know that Gates, through Cascade, owns a significant stake in the Four Seasons luxury-hotel chain.

And he's frugal with the bosses' money, too. Apparently Cascade employees, of whom there are about 100, are not allowed to stay at the Four Seasons when traveling on business, even if that business is on behalf of the Four Seasons.  They must choose a lower-cost, less luxurious hotel.

"Melinda and I are free to pursue our vision of a healthier and better-educated world because of what Michael has done," Gates told guests at the party.

And ultimately, the money will go to charity. Bill and Melinda Gates have vowed to donate 95% of their wealth to their foundation, as part of Gate's Giving Pledge.

But until then, Larson is making it grow.

SEE ALSO: The Woman Who Protected Yahoo's $27 Billion Windfall From Alibaba Cried With Joy Last Night

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In July, Bill Gates may or may not have lost his title as the world's richest man. It depends on who you ask.

According to Forbes, Gates has a net worth of almost $82 billion, which puts him in the No. 2 spot behind Mexican telecom magnate Carlos Slim, who's worth $85.4 billion.

According to Bloomberg, Gates is still the world's richest man, worth about $86.5 billion, with Slim at No. 2.

In truth, we don't really know exactly how much Bill Gates is worth, thanks to his uber secretive money manager, Michael Larson, who runs Gates' investment firm Cascade Investment LLC.

Cascade is a private company and doesn't report its earnings. (It doesn't have to.) On top of that, Larson uses all sorts of tricks to hide Gates' involvement in some of Cascade's investments, particularly his real estate holdings, reports the Wall Street Journal.

What we do know is that, from the investments we can track, Gates is at least $6 billion richer right now than he was about six months ago. In March 2014, Forbes said he was worth $76 billion. And that $76 billion was up about $9 billion over his net worth in March, 2013. If we use Bloomberg's number, Gates is up over $10 billion.

A billion here. A billion there. The point is, everyone agrees that Gates is unbelievably wealthy and getting richer all the time.

Interestingly, his wealth is not coming from Microsoft. Back in the day, when Microsoft went public in 1986, Gates owned a 45% stake of Microsoft, or 1 billion shares. Since 1994, he's steadily sold much of that stake: $40 billion worth.

Today, his wealth comes from Cascade. While we'll never know the full extent of its investments, from the public documents Cascade has filed, we do know they include stock in the Canadian National Railway, AutoNation Inc., Berkshire Hathaway, and Republic Services Inc. He also at one time owned significant stakes in Deere & Co, Liberty Global, and Waste Management.

In terms of real estate, he owns stakes in several upscale hotels including the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco, the Four Seasons Holding Inc. luxury-hotel chain, and has a 490-acre ranch in Wyoming once owned by William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, reports the WSJ.

Surprisingly, his tech investments are relatively sparse. He tends to handle those himself, not through Cascade.

For instance, he founded photo-sharing website Corbis in 1989. He also has a stake in nuclear-reactor developer TerraPower LLC,  the meat-substitute maker Beyond Meat (which has also attracted Twitter cofounders Biz Stone and Evan Williams as investors), and ResearchGate, a social network for scientists.

And he still owns Microsoft, just under 300 million shares.

Interestingly, had he kept all of his Microsoft stock, he'd actually be worth more today and be the unquestionable richest man alive. Microsoft's stock has been on the rise since it promoted Satya Nadella to CEO. It's trading above $47.59, with a market cap of nearly $385 billion. So his 45% stake would be worth about $173 billion.

By that way of looking at it, Bill Gates is down by over $80 billion.

He's spending $40 billion on charity through his philanthropic foundation, and his net worth is still growing – and growing fast.

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Video games are a huge industry and a big part of our society — take a look at Microsoft's recent purchase of a game studio for $2.5 billion — but games get a bad rap.

They're often portrayed as antisocial, violent, and as an addictive waste of time that encourages obesity.  

But that's not necessarily accurate, and it's definitely not the full story. 

Lots of people play video games. According to the Entertainment Software Association, 59% of Americans play games. Despite problems with sexism in the gaming world, 48% of those players are women, and the average player is 31 years old.

It's a big business too. The global gaming industry was worth $67 billion in 2013 and is projected to grow to $82 billion by 2017. Robert Morris University announced this year that they would start giving scholarships to League of Legends players — a game that top competitors make a ton of money playing. 

Contrary to their reputation, many games have educational, physical, and psychological benefits for players. Games that use repetitive actions, such as the swinging of a bat or targeting a moving object, train the brain and muscles to perform better in real-life activities. 

Video game brain training has the same effect as reading a book or riding a bike — when the brain is learning, thousands of new connections are being formed. The addition of a reward system motivates players to continuously improve their skills.

People who play action-based games make accurate decisions 25% faster.

Fast-paced games require quick thinking and fast reactions to avoid being killed. In real-life situations, active gamers have a better sense of what is going around them and are able to make decisions faster, according to scientists from the University of Rochester. 

In the one study, participants aged 18 to 25 were split into two groups. One group played 50 hours of the action-packed first-person shooter games "Call of Duty 2" and "Unreal Tournament," and the other group played 50 hours of the simulator game "The Sims 2." The action game players made decisions 25% faster in a task unrelated to playing video games, without sacrificing accuracy.  

"Action game players make more correct decisions per unit time. If you are a surgeon or you are in the middle of a battlefield, that can make all the difference," study researcher Daphne Bavelier said in a statement.

A driving game improved memory, focus, and multitasking ability in older adults.

According to a study published in the journal Nature, researchers "discovered that swerving around cars while simultaneously picking out road signs in a video game can improve the short-term memory and long-term focus of older adults," The New York Times reports.

A group of adults between the ages of 60 and 85 were were recruited to play a game called NeuroRacer for 12 hours over a month. Six months after playing the game, the older adults were better at multitasking, retained more information in a short period of time, and had stronger attention skills.

Video games encourage physical activity.

Endless hours parked in front a computer screen generally does not lead to weight loss. But games that pair virtual worlds with exercise could get people who are less inclined to workout to start moving.

Researchers have found that playing games on a Nintendo Wii that force people to get up and move for 20 minutes at a time is a legitimate and potentially more interesting alternative to traditional aerobic exercise.

Another study in the journal Pediatrics found that playing games like Dance Dance Revolution was equivalent to moderate intensity exercise for kids, making it a "a safe, fun, and valuable means of promoting energy expenditure," according to the study.

Video games may also be more effective at changing behavior. In a study from the University of Indiana, people who received workout advice through a game called Second Life reported more positive changes in healthy eating and physical activity than people who went to a traditional gym, even though weight loss was the same in both groups.

If you live in New York City, chances are you use the subway system daily. Love them or hate them, New York's subway cars are an iconic symbol of the city. But have you ever wondered how those cars came to be? 

We did, so we decided to take a trip (via subway, of course) up to Yonkers, New York, to the Kawasaki Rail Car Manufacturing Facility, where many of New York's subway cars are completed and readied for service. What we found gave us a new perspective on the way we get to work every morning.

Kawasaki has been making heavy rail cars since 1906. Their Yonkers factory recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. Why Yonkers? Kawasaki's original contract stipulated that subway cars made for the Port Authority of New York must be manufactured within a 25-mile radius of the Statue of Liberty.

Rolling stock makes up 10% of Kawaski's manufacturing, which includes commuter rail, high speed rail, light rail, and heavy rail. At this site, they do final assembly of brand new cars, as well refurbish older ones.

Kawasaki is the second largest manufacturer of train cars, owning 23.5% of the passenger rail market, just behind Bombardier with 30.1%. The third largest competitor is Siemens. Subway cars are built on contract from various authorities. The Yonkers plant has built and overhauled cars for the Port Authority, LIRR, PATH, SEPTA, and others.