This is ridiculous:

Medical researchers in Oklahoma are offering a no-questions-asked $1,000 reward for the return of a stolen laptop that contains years of research on prostate cancer. […]

Has no one heard of backups?! Any time you have data that you can’t afford to lose, you should be making regular backups of it! Preferably automatic ones. At least to a second computer or flash drive, preferably all that plus storing a copy off-site too. If you don’t, theft of the hardware is the least of your worries.