Month: October 2016

More than 40 million Americans live in households that are food insecure, which means that they don’t have the resources to regularly acquire nutritious, safe food. Food banks are almost always in need of nonperishable food items, but most people only turn their attention to feeding hungry people around holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Although it’s great to donate cans of soup and boxes of pasta to a food bank, there’s a lot more you can do to make a difference. Here are 12 ways you can help your local food bank.

1. VOLUNTEER.

Committing a few hours a month to volunteer at your local food bank can be a huge boon to an organization that’s probably understaffed and working with a limited budget. Food banks need volunteers to sort donations, stock shelves, prepare meals, serve food, and deliver care packages. Your local food bank may also need volunteers to do bookkeeping or online work, so be sure to inquire about their additional needs if you have any specialty skills that you think might be of service.

2. HOST A PANTRY DONATION PARTY.

Fall is a time for family parties and get-togethers with friends, so why not host a party with a theme that focuses on donating to the hungry? When you invite loved ones over to your house, tell them to bring a few nonperishable food items. Besides chatting and eating, your friends and family will be doing good for needy people. After the party, bring all the items you collected to your local food bank.

3. GIVE MONEY.

Because most food banks rely on donations to feed the hungry, giving money can be a huge help. Food banks buy food at wholesale, bulk, or other discounted rates, meaning that they can get a large amount of food for a small amount of money. Some food banks also have matching deals with food manufacturers, so the manufacturer donates money or food for certain purchases that the food bank makes. And when a food bank has a plethora of rice and beans but not enough fruit or vegetables, money you donate can help them fill in the gaps of whatever food they’re missing.

4. FIND OUT IF YOUR COMPANY PARTICIPATES IN A MATCHING GIFT PROGRAM.

Some large corporations have matching gift programs, in which they’ll match a donation you make to charity. If your employer offers such a program, fill out the paperwork and use your company’s generosity to effectively double your donation. As the largest hunger relief organization in the U.S., Feeding America is a good place to think about making a donation (and using your company’s matching policy to help even more).

5. MAKE A HOLIDAY DONATION IN SOMEONE ELSE’S NAME.

Though tangible gifts for holidays and birthdays are often top of mind, consider eschewing physical items to instead make a monetary donation in someone else’s name. Feeding America offers an eCard you can send to people when you make a donation in their name. And if you recently lost a loved one, you can make a memorial donation to honor his or her memory and ask that others do the same.

6. DON’T DONATE ITEMS THAT YOUR FOOD BANK CAN’T USE.

Before donating any food to your local food bank, contact them to ask what they need. Most food banks won’t accept containers that have been opened, products that have expired, homemade dishes, or alcohol. In general, opt for metal cans and plastic containers over breakable glass jars, and try to give nutritious food that will last a long time, such as rice, beans, oatmeal, peanut butter, pasta, and canned veggies.

7. IF YOU’RE AN AVID GARDENER, SEE IF YOUR LOCAL FOOD BANK ACCEPTS FRESH PRODUCE.

Depending on the capacity and location of a food bank, it might have a need for fresh produce, such as carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini, and peppers. Ample Harvest encourages home gardeners to plant an extra row of veggies, with the intention of donating, and has resources to help find pantries in your area that would be able to accept your crop. 

8. THINK OUTSIDE THE KITCHEN.

Although a food bank’s main focus is on feeding people, some food banks also accept cosmetics and hygiene products. Besides the obvious canned foods, you might be able to donate baby food, diapers, cleaning supplies, toilet paper, soap, and toothpaste. If you’re not sure about a certain item, call your local food bank ahead of time to see if they accept those items and have a need.

9. DON’T FORGET SPICES AND CONDIMENTS.

Most food banks get a ton of staple foods, but they’re often lacking in spices and condiments. Although salt and pepper aren’t essential, hungry people do use and greatly appreciate seasonings. Salt, pepper, mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, and Sriracha are versatile items that can improve the taste of many dishes.

10. CONTACT YOUR CONGRESSPERSON.

Call, email, or write a letter to your local and state representatives about the importance of food banks and the work they do to feed the hungry in your community. Before you contact your representative, educate yourself by reading about current legislation and how you can become a hunger relief advocate.

11. ARRANGE TO DONATE LEFTOVERS FROM YOUR PARTY.

Some venues have strict rules about what to do with leftover food from a catered party. If you’re hosting a holiday event with catered food, try to choose a venue that doesn’t throw out leftover food for health or liability reasons. And if your local food bank won’t accept leftovers, ask if they can suggest another organization that will accept this type of food donation.

12. REMEMBER THAT PEOPLE ARE IN NEED YEAR-ROUND.

It’s great to help your local food bank around Thanksgiving and Christmas, but some food banks have a surplus of food in the fall and winter and a dearth in the summer months. Remember that people are in need of food all the time. If you want to donate food year-round, think about giving items on the first day of every month, or plan to evenly space out your donations throughout the calendar year.

All images via iStock.

One of the first challenges any newborn faces is the risk of infection. But researchers from the University of Utah recently discovered a special peptide in babies’ umbilical cord blood that may help prevent life-threatening inflammation and sepsis, as they reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation [PDF]. Called the neonatal NET inhibitory factor (nNIF), this amino acid chain keeps the body from producing NETs (neutrophil extracellular traps), fibers whose job is to capture pathogens. This slows the inflammatory response, making the immune system less effective. The researchers believe harnessing this process could help treat inflammation and sepsis—and not just in babies.

It may seem counterintuitive that having a slower immune system would be considered advantageous, but the researchers theorize nNIF may actually be very important to a newborn baby. “The immune system has to be dampened during those first few days and weeks of life because the baby is being exposed to all these new proteins it’s never seen before,” Christian Yost, lead author on the study and an associate professor of pediatrics at Utah State University, tells mental_floss. If the baby’s immune system responded in a robust way, it would kill not only dangerous germs, but the good bacteria colonizing the baby’s body for the first time. It may serve a purpose before the baby is born too. “We think this represents one of the mechanisms of tolerance that keep the baby’s immune system from attacking the mother,” he says.

This peptide only exists in the cords and circulatory systems of newborn babies for about two weeks; then it disappears. While the NET fibers it produces help the immune system fight off invading bacteria and viruses, Yost says they’re “two edges of a sword. You’ve got to have enough NET formation to limit the spread of infection. If you have too much, or it happens in a place where it’s not supposed to, that can be equally as injurious.”

To test the power of nNIF, seven families with premature babies agreed to let Yost and his colleagues extract blood from their babies’ cords and take blood samples from their bodies. After synthesizing the nNIF peptides from the samples in a laboratory, Yost’s team delivered them in a series of tests to mice with different types of infections. They injected, for example, lipopolysaccharides into the abdomens of mice to mimic a gram negative infection like pneumonia, which Yost says stimulates a “robust inflammatory response.” They also injected E. coli bacteria—a big cause of sepsis in people young and old—into the peritoneal space of the mice. In the last model of infection, part of the mice’s large intestines were tied off and small punctures made so that bacteria leaked into the peritoneal cavity and caused “a model of polymicrobial sepsis.” In every case, Yost says, “mice that were treated [with the nNIF peptides] had 30 to 40 percent increased survival, compared to the ones that were not treated.”

Obtaining cord blood from babies may be a sensitive issue for some, but many new parents either donate the cords to research or have them preserved in a cord bank. Moreover, Yost reassures that such cells could be replicated in the lab. “Now that we know the sequence for the NET-inhibitory peptides, we do not need to harvest them from umbilical cord blood to use them for experiments or, in the future, as a potential therapeutic agents.”

Yost believes these inhibitory peptides can make a huge dent in preventing intense inflammation—which can be very painful—and potentially lethal infections from sepsis in premature babies, and have potential as a treatment that could benefit people of any age.

Even casual sports fans in the United States are familiar with the legendary Curse of the Bambino: After trading Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees in the off-season between 1919 and 1920, the Boston Red Sox failed to win the World Series for 86 years. The Sox’s spell of bad luck ended in 2004, but they’re not the only baseball team to be cursed with a losing streak. Over in Japan, the Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball’s Central League are suffering from a similar dry spell. The only difference is that instead of being haunted by a bad trade, they’re cursed by the late founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Colonel Harland David Sanders.

In 1985, the Tigers won the Japan Championship Series (Japan’s version of the World Series). Delighted fans took their celebration to the street and, as per tradition, met on the Ebisubashi Bridge in Osaka. After naming each member of the winning team, a fan who bore a vague resemblance to the player called would jump in the Dotonbori River. But when the crowd came to the team’s power hitter and MVP, Randy Bass, they ran into trouble. Unable to find anyone who looked anything like the American player, the revelers had to get creative—and that’s where Colonel Sanders comes in. Fans found a nearby KFC with a statue of the fast food mascot outside. They hoisted the statue from its perch, dressed it up like Bass, and tossed it in the river in honor of the player. Little did they know what consequences their gesture would have.

According to lore, the spirit of the chicken king (Sanders died in 1980) was less than pleased, and since this injustice toward the Colonel’s statue, the Tigers haven’t been able to win a Championship Series.

Sports fans are a notoriously superstitious bunch, so it’s not surprising that they would place the blame on the ghostly shoulders of Colonel Sanders. It’s believed—both playfully and seriously—that the spirit of the American businessman has come back to haunt the Tigers after the disrespectful dunking of his likeness. After all, the team hasn’t won a Series in 31 years, despite making it to the playoffs in 2003, 2005, and 2014.

Obviously, this sort of haunting isn’t taken lightly. The team’s fans have tried everything short of an exorcism to lift the curse, and in 2009, divers even rescued the statue from the river. Unfortunately, the one of Colonel’s hands and as well as his glasses are still hiding somewhere in the murky depths of the river—perhaps still holding onto the decades-old grudge. We can only hope, for the sake of the Tigers, that the vengeful ghost statue spirit lifts his curse soon. (In 2003, scientists discouraged fans from jumping in the river, which was reportedly “full of toxic sludge” thanks the exhaust fumes from passing cars and pollution from the nearby industrial plants; when the Tigers won the Central League pennant for the first time in 18 years that year, fans jumped anyway.)

If you’re wondering how Bass himself is doing, it seems he’s been able to avoid the scourge: He’s now an Oklahoma State Senator.

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The latter part of the last century was rife with paranormal activity. Throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, supposed supernatural incidents occurred in homes (and a hotel) across the globe and led to novels being written and filmmakers adapting those ghost stories into hit films. Though all of these stories have been debunked, there are those who still want to believe that these events really did happen. Regardless of which side you stand on, they make for some spooky tales. Here are the true stories behind six haunted house movies.

1. THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979)

The 1979 film, starring Margot Kidder and James Brolin, was based on a book that chronicled the real-life paranormal activities of a Long Island home. After moving into the house, the Lutz family discovered that, a year prior, previous occupant Ronald DeFeo Jr. had killed six members of his family (including his parents) in the home. Some disturbances they experienced were: swarms of flies in the winter, strange odors of perfume wafting throughout the house, and sounds of the front door slamming. The Lutzes moved a month later, though successive residents of 112 Ocean Avenue have not reported anything abnormal. Several more books were published about the happenings, along with sequels to the film and a 2005 remake. Want to find out for yourself? The home, which is now officially 108 Ocean Avenue (a previous owner worked to have the infamous address changed), is currently on the market for $850,000.

2. THE CONJURING (2013)

One of the highest-grossing supernatural films of all time, James Wan’s The Conjuring depicted the true story of the Perron family, who lived in a demon-filled Rhode Island farmhouse. Akin to the Amityville house, real-life paranormalists Ed and Lorraine Warren (depicted by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga in the film) visited the home and interviewed the family. Despite activity such as a séance causing the mom, Carolyn, to become possessed and speak a strange language, the family tolerated the home until 1980. Andrea, one of the daughters, published a book on the phenomenon, and told USA Today, “People are free to believe whatever they want to believe. But I know what we experienced.”

3. THE CONJURING 2 (2016)

This 2016 sequel exchanges New England for Brimsdown, Enfield, England, where the Warrens investigate a case known as the Enfield Poltergeist. Peggy Hodgson’s daughters claimed they saw a chest of drawers slide and heard knocking, but experts think they made it up. Guy Lyon Playfair published a book on the matter in 1980 called This House is Haunted: The Amazing Inside Story of the Enfield Poltergeist.

4. WHEN THE LIGHTS WENT OUT (2012)

Director Pat Holden’s 2012 British film about the Maynard family is based on his family’s story. His aunt, Jean Pritchard, and her family—who lived at 30 East Drive, Pontefract, West Yorkshire, England in 1966—experienced a poltergeist in their home that looked like a monk, a.k.a The Black Monk of Pontefract; they named it “Fred.” The not-so-friendly ghost smashed eggs, made banging noises, and dragged Holden’s cousin up the stairs. He was too young to visit the house, which is one reason he wanted to make the film.

“I’ve always had this feeling of never quite being in the zeitgeist,” Holden told The Guardian. “And I think it was a little bit like that with the ghost. My sister was allowed to see it. My mum got to see it. My dad wasn’t that interested. I felt like I’d missed out.” Recently, a resident at the same house captured a photo of what’s believed to be the Black Monk. 

5. THE ENTITY (1982)

In The Entity (based on Frank De Felitta’s novel of the same name), Barbara Hershey plays Carla Moran, a fictionalized version of Doris Bither, a woman who claimed the spirits of three Asian men repeatedly assaulted her. The real-life events supposedly happened in Culver City, California, in 1974. Paranormal investigators Dr. Barry Taff and Kerry Gaynor visited Bither’s house, which had been condemned twice. At the house, the doctors witnessed “a green mist that formed the body of a man” and orbs over Bither’s body when photographed. Bither moved out of the house and claimed the entity continued to follow her around.

6. THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT (2009)

In 2009, the film version of the Snedeker family’s harrowing haunting was released, but according to Lorraine Warren, “The movie is very, very loosely based on the actual investigation.” Both the film and the true story involve a family in the 1980s who had a son stricken with cancer, so they moved into a house near the University of Connecticut hospital—but didn’t know that the house was a former mortuary.

While the family resided there, kids levitated and rosary beads pulled apart on their own. The Warrens invited priests over and held mass, but that wasn’t enough. Finally, an exorcist stopped by, and that seemed to calm the place. In 1992, Ray Garton wrote a book about the haunting, In a Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting. But the book and the events have come under fire as being hoaxes.

A 2013 sequel to The Haunting in Connecticut, The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia, is also based on a real event—a child named Heidi Wyrick attracted spirits in her home in Georgia, not Connecticut.

Using only a crochet hook and lots of brown yarn, Stephanie Pokorny of Mentor, Ohio, created a one-of-a-kind, E.T.-inspired Halloween costume entirely by hand, The Huffington Post reports. The get-up might be referencing a 34-year-old movie, but it was custom-made for a much younger wearer: the crafter’s toddler.

Each fall, Pokorny—who describes herself to mental_floss as a “self-proclaimed Halloween addict”—teams up with family members to make a unique costume from scratch. “We live in Ohio and sometimes we have snow on Halloween, so it’s the perfect time to bust out the yarn,” said Pokorny, whose grandmother taught her to crochet when she was a teenager.

Pokorny’s past Halloween projects have included costumes for her son Jack, who turns two in November. She’s crocheted him a Alice in Wonderland-inspired caterpillar outfit and a Clint Eastwood costume, but this year, the crafty mom took a cue from her favorite decade, the 1980s, and knitted the toddler a snug, one-piece ensemble inspired by the titular alien from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982).

The entire project took Pokorny four days, and she didn’t use a pattern. “I began on a Friday and finished Monday evening, weaving in the last end just before I took and posted the photos [on social media] that night,” she told mental_floss. Check out more of Pokorny’s crochet costumes on Facebook and on her Crochetverse site.

[h/t The Huffington Post]

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This paper rolls up into an adjustable flashlight https://t.co/fkawMMlslt @engadget pic.twitter.com/dHvOJEsVdf

— Deloitte Digital (@DeloitteDigital) October 17, 2016

Takeo has been producing fine paper in Japan since it was established in 1899, but the manufacturer recently embarked on a project that veered away from its traditional roots: As engadget reports, the company teamed up with the printable circuits start-up AgIC to create a sheet of paper that doubles as an adjustable flashlight.

The Paper Torch is the most recent capsule collection from the product development platform Design of Things. The project uses printed circuits to achieve the simple and unique design. When the sheet is rolled up the circuits appear to react, creating shortcuts and delivering more power to the light bulb. The amount of light dispersed varies based on how tightly the torch is rolled.

Printed circuits have been used to create paper-thin lights in the past: In July we highlighted a bookmark produced by another Japanese design firm that transforms into a reading light when bent. The Paper Torch looks like it produces a lot more illuminating power, but consumers will have to wait a while before getting their hands on one. A crowdfunding campaign for the concept is set to launch in Japan in mid-November.

[h/t engadget]

All images: Twitter

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