Author: Jake Rossen

The day may not be far away when autonomous vehicles shuttle us to and from work, airports, and other appointments. But the self-driving revolution also has more ambitious goals—like delivering gallons of alcohol.

Otto, a technology start-up owned by Uber, recently outfitted an 18-wheel delivery truck with self-driving equipment and sent it on its maiden voyage to make the first delivery by a sentient truck: 50,000 cans of Budweiser.

Otto launched the truck from a brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado and had a human operator navigate it to Interstate 25 before engaging the autonomous driving option at a steady speed of 55 miles per hour. Escorted by a Colorado state police vehicle, the truck then traveled 120 miles to Colorado Springs, where it idled as humans scurried to unload its contents.

The pilot test was part of an increasing paradigm shift in the trucking industry, which is burdened both by concerns over operator fatigue causing accidents and an incredible shortage of workers—it might find itself lacking 175,000 drivers in just a few years.

To help resolve each of those issues, Otto will have to navigate federal regulation that’s likely to be tough on safety expectations. And while highways pose fewer obstacle issues than populated areas with crosswalks and slowed traffic, it’s likely drivers will still be needed to shepherd them on and off freeways.

But that gets ahead of the fact that a self-driving truck just deposited a plentiful supply of beer to an entire town. To commemorate the occasion, Budweiser manufactured the cans with a label running along the bottom: “First delivery by self-driving truck.”

[h/t WIRED]

When director Sam Raimi released the original The Evil Dead in 1981, Stephen King dubbed it “the most ferociously original horror film of the year.” The splatter flick about a small group of friends enduring the consequences of selecting a demon-infested cabin for a weekend getaway spawned two sequels, a 2013 reboot, and a current television series, Ash vs. Evil Dead.

None of that may have happened if Raimi hadn’t first elected to shoot Within the Woods, his 1978 prototype short that helped convince investors he could make an effective horror film. And while The Evil Dead may be one of the best-known examples of a genre filmmaker offering a proof-of-concept project, it’s far from the only one. Check out eight other horror features that started life as short scares.

1. MONSTER (2005) // THE BABADOOK (2014)

It took director Jennifer Kent nearly a decade to turn her 10-minute short, Monster, into a feature, but the wait paid off: The Babadook received some of the best critical notices of any film in 2014. In both the short and full-length story, a single mother and her child confront a monster in their home that turns out to be as much a metaphysical threat as a real one. Kent said she expanded the short as a result of financial constraints: financiers in her native Australia found other scripts for her first feature film too ambitious, leading her to return to the more intimate (and less expensive) narrative. Kent calls the original a “baby Babadook.”

2. OCULUS: CHAPTER 3 – THE MAN WITH THE PLAN (2006) // OCULUS (2013)

Mike Flanagan’s logline was simple: throw a guy into a room with a haunted mirror and see what happens. Oculus: Chapter 3 – The Man With the Plan, a 29-minute short, was the result. (There was no chapter one or two.) Flanagan got plenty of offers from Hollywood following its release—but few wanted to entrust him to direct a feature. After using Kickstarter to fund the small independent movie Absentia, Flanagan was able to expand the mirror idea for Oculus, a film starring Karen Gillan (Doctor Who) that opened up the narrative to include more than one time period.

There was just one additional wrinkle: Flanagan didn’t want to do it as a found footage film, which studios kept insisting upon. After negotiations, he got his wish: Oculus found a receptive audience without the gimmick.

3. GRACE (2006) // GRACE (2009)

It’s rare that a 6-minute short bears more recognizable performers than the eventual feature film, but director Paul Solet’s Grace is an exception. Shot on a microscopic budget in 2006, Solet was able to convince Beverly Hills, 90210 star Brian Austin Green to participate. The short—about a mother experiencing a very unconventional and very alarming pregnancy—was filmed strictly as a calling card, as Solet had written a full-length script prior but had problems getting interest. After touring the festival circuit, he managed to obtain funding from ArieScope Pictures for a film. Although it’s not known what effect watching the short has had on viewers, at least two men passed out during the feature’s premiere.

4. IN A CORNER (1998) // JU-ON: THE GRUDGE (2002) // THE GRUDGE (2004)

Japanese horror has been fertile source material for plenty of Hollywood remakes, but there are still a number of fans who prefer the originals. In the case of Ju-On, director Takashi Shimizu’s tale of a family pursued by accursed entities, the English version was actually the third to be filmed. In 1998, Shimizu shot two brief projects on videotape for the Japanese horror TV series Haunted School G that contained several of the core concepts found in the features, including the infamous “crawl” of leading creepy girl Kayako.

5. TOOTH FAIRY (2001) // DARKNESS FALLS (2003)

Comic book writer Joe Harris’s short film, Tooth Fairy, had an irresistible hook for film studios: a malevolent tooth fairy that hunts children. After the film made festival rounds, Revolution Studios purchased the rights for a full feature adaptation. Harris said in 2010 that he wrote several drafts of the film before a “heavily rewritten” version made it into theaters.

6. THE SITTER (1977) // WHEN A STRANGER CALLS (1979)

When a Stranger Calls may not hold up for its entire running time, but most who have seen it will tell you that its opening 10 minutes (above) might be among the scariest committed to film. The sequence—which features Carol Kane getting some disturbing calls from a mysterious voyeur while babysitting—was largely mapped out in director Fred Walton’s short film, The Sitter, which was made for $12,000. While the feature drew criticism for not having enough plot to sustain itself past those early moments, they’re worth the price of admission. In 2006, Simon West directed a remake of the feature version.

7. LIGHTS OUT (2013) // LIGHTS OUT (2016)

How short can a film be and still attract interest from major studios? Maybe as short as three minutes, the approximate running time of director David Sandberg’s Lights Out, a 2013 film that consisted of nothing more than a woman being terrified by something in the dark. It was enough for producer and filmmaker James Wan (The Conjuring) to sign Sandberg for a full-length version. In addition to that pivotal opportunity, Wan is also positioning Sandberg to direct the sequel to the killer-doll film Annabelle. Not bad for a film barely longer than a commercial break.

8. SEASON’S GREETINGS (1996) // TRICK ‘R TREAT (2007)

Likely one of the few senior thesis projects to inspire a feature, Michael Dougherty’s animated short from 1996 preceded his horror anthology from 2007. In both the college and feature films, the ominous trick-or-treater, Sam, is front and center. Dougherty reportedly cut his hand while hand-drawing the animation, with the blood specks making it into the finished edit.

Although passing gas is a fact of life, there are times when you may want to reduce your chances of clearing a room or creating a biohazard situation in an elevator.

Fortunately, a new study offers up some helpful advice. Researchers at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, recently examined how different foods can affect the amount of hydrogen sulfide produced by bacteria in the gut. While farts are made up of several different gases—oxygen, nitrogen, methane, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen—it’s the hydrogen sulfide that’s responsible for making your wind smell like a carton of eggs left to rot in the sun.

In order to discover how the gas interacts with feces, the scientists gathered the poop of seven healthy volunteers and then mixed it with components commonly found in both meat and carbohydrates to see which produced more of the odor-causing gas. The result? Cysteine, an amino acid found in meat, eggs, and other protein-heavy foods, increased the hydrogen sulfide sevenfold.

But when they mixed the waste with fructans and resistant starch, production of the sulfide was reduced by 75 percent.

In other words, your typical bodybuilder’s diet that’s high in protein is likely to make for a terrible post-workout car ride. If you plan on being in a situation where a malignant toot would be socially crippling, you might want to ease up on the eggs and instead opt for carbs like bananas, potatoes, wheat, or vegetables like artichokes and asparagus.

According to lead study author Chu Yao, the biggest takeaway from the research would be not to avoid fiber for fear you’ll suffer from gas. While fart production might increase, fiber soaking up water in the intestine helps knock out the sulfide and reduce the smell.

“The concerning thing is that there are all these people walking around constipated because they are too scared to eat fiber in case they do a bad fart,” Yao told New Scientist.

[h/t New Scientist]

Some game shows will reward you with cars and cash prizes for being smart and intuitive. Nickelodeon’s Double Dare, which ran from 1986 to 1993 and taped more than 500 episodes, gave its kid contestants bicycles or boom boxes in exchange for fetching giant balls of snot from oversized noses.

To celebrate the show’s 30^th anniversary, and with a new special set to air on Nick on November 23, we thought we’d drop some facts on the show’s history, the comedian originally set to host, and how one kid wound up snapping a bone in half on the perpetually hazardous course.

1. IT WAS INSPIRED BY MOUSE TRAP.

While kicking around ideas for a kid-oriented game show, Nickelodeon executive—and Double Dare co-creator—Geoffrey Darby recalled that a staffer brought up the classic board game Mouse Trap, which invited players to lure a (fake) mouse into a custom-built holding pen. Darby picked up on the thread, pitching the series as a Rube Goldberg machine that used people instead of balls.

2. DANA CARVEY WAS OFFERED THE HOSTING GIG.

Before settling on onetime magician Marc Summers, Double Dare looked at hundreds of host candidates. Soupy Sales, a comedian who had a popular kids’ show in the 1950s, was considered; so was Dana Carvey, who was reportedly offered the job on the same day he was invited to join Saturday Night Live. He opted for the sketch show, leaving the slot open for Summers.

3. THE VERY FIRST OBSTACLE COURSE WAS A DISASTER.

For the uninitiated, Double Dare typically pitted two teams against one another in a series of increasingly difficult—and disgusting—challenges, culminating with a run through a slime- and cream-covered obstacle course. When the show taped its first episode in September 1986, producers directed the contestants to find a flag hidden in a giant bag of feathers. Unfortunately, no one had bothered to hide the flag. On take two, the contestant was so rough with the feathers they didn’t see the flag had been gently placed within easy view. On the third take, a cameraman fell into the frame. They got it on the fourth try.

4. THE SET HAD ITS OWN SEWAGE SYSTEM.

Although Double Dare began on a studio set at a Philadelphia television station, it eventually moved to Nickelodeon’s home base in Orlando, Florida. The stage—which was usually filled with tourists visiting Universal Studios Orlando—was built specifically to accommodate the overflow of disgusting waste material created by the production. A sewage system allowed crew members to mop the glop off the floor and directly into grates. The “clean team” went through between 600 and 1000 towels per taping to erase any residual signs of slime.

5. THE STAGE WAS A TOTAL SLIPPING HAZARD.

No matter how much the crew steam-cleaned, vacuumed, or mopped, the bathroom-like tile of the stage floor maintained its essential sheen of foot-slipping gloss. The crew eventually grew accustomed to sliding across the set in tiny shuffle steps, similar to how you’d navigate a frozen-over driveway.  

6. THERE WAS ONE GRUESOME INJURY.

Despite a space that would never pass OSHA standards, surprisingly few participants were ever actually harmed during taping of Double Dare—with one exception. During one obstacle, a child running across the floor slipped, braced himself, and snapped his arm so severely the bone poked through the skin. Summers would later recall that the kid had lied on his application and may have had a preexisting health condition that made his bones more brittle. Because he wanted to appear on the show so badly, he didn’t mention it.

7. “GAK” WAS A SLANG TERM FOR HEROIN—AND SLIME.

It was inevitable that Double Dare would spawn a series of tie-in products, including board games and apparel. The show also helped licensees create GAK, a rubbery, goopy substance meant to mimic the slime seen on the series. The name came from crew members who worked on the show as a kind of homage to the street term for heroin, a factoid that went over most parents’ heads.

8. THEY USED A THREE-TRIES RULE FOR NEW CHALLENGES.

After designing a new obstacle, producers would invite kids from the Philadelphia area on non-shoot days to give it a shot. If a child couldn’t get through it in three tries, the idea would be scrapped.

9. IT USED TONS OF FOOD.

In 1987, The New York Times convinced a show staffer to tabulate the gross amount of food material used during a typical taping of the show. Their tally: 50 gallons of whipped cream, 30 gallons of slime, dozens of eggs, and 100 cubic feet of popcorn. To offset concerns over food waste, the production used as much post-dated canned material or other past-due goods as they could.

10. PEOPLE WENT BONKERS OVER THE SHOW.

While kids were delighted to have a game show that rewarded sloppiness, they weren’t the only ones watching. After just nine months on the air, Double Dare fan clubs popped up at Cornell and Ohio State University; the production received more than 10,000 letters every month, with a portion coming from parents griping that they had to postpone dinner because their kids insisted on viewing the messy show precisely at 5:30 p.m.

11. SUMMERS HAS HOSTED BOOTLEG VERSIONS.

 With Nickelodeon wary of producing a full-blown revival of the series—the Summers-less Double Dare 2000 was not fondly received—the host has taken to emceeing unlicensed versions of the show for locally organized events. Every year, Summers hosts Dunkel Dare, a beer-themed challenge attraction that takes place during Philadelphia’s Beer Week.

12. SUMMERS WAS BELOVED BY SOME MOMS.

For years, Summers and Double Dare toured the country, doing live shows for crowds who were eager to try out the obstacles but couldn’t get to Orlando. After the live show, Summers would typically meet with fans to sign autographs. “There were all the mothers who would hand me their telephone numbers during the meet-and-greet after the show and tell me to call them when their husbands weren’t home,” he told People. “There was all sorts of nutty stuff going on.”

13. THEY DIDN’T ENDORSE JUST ANYTHING.

As alien a concept as it may seem today, Nickelodeon didn’t want to slap the Double Dare brand on anything that came along. The show turned down $1 million offered by watchmaker Casio to be the “official” time clock of the series; according to Summers, the network also refused another $1 million to license a Double Dare cereal.

14. THEY DID OFFER A CAR—ONCE.

With a tight budget, the original Double Dare generally kept the threshold for prizes low. In 1987, producers awarded a miniature automobile to a winning team strictly for their own amusement. Said executive producer Geoffrey Darby: “We wanted to be able to hear a kid scream, ‘It’s a new car!’”

It’s said that Aboriginal men have a strict policy when it comes to their mothers-in-law: They don’t look directly at them or address them in any way. It’s a tradition that has roots in the culture’s earliest days and probably has done more to ease familial tensions than any in history.

Of course, most families don’t have any such traditions in place, leading to several instances of historical figures who have been influenced—or browbeaten—by their in-law. Here are 11 examples.

1. SARA ROOSEVELT

Upon hearing her son—and future president—Franklin wanted to marry Eleanor, Sara Roosevelt tried to convince him to break it off. When that didn’t work, she coerced him into keeping it a secret for a year. Sara had a hand in every facet of his life, even ordering construction of a double townhouse after the wedding so that Franklin and Eleanor could live on one side and she could live on the other. Eleanor and Sara were often at odds, including how best to move forward after Franklin’s diagnosis of polio. When Sara died in 1941, Eleanor wrote that it was hard to have known someone for 36 years yet “feel no deep affection or sense of loss.”

2. SOPHIE OF BAVARIA

Born in 1837, Sisi Wittelsbach became an empress by marrying Franz Joseph, a seeming promotion in life quality—were it not for her mother-in-law, Sophie. The Archduchess was also Sisi’s aunt and campaigned for her son to marry Sisi’s sister, Helene, instead. When that failed, she made a habit of correcting Sisi’s every move, including how best to mother her own children. Even her own son, Franz, was too laid-back for her liking; Sophie has become known as the “only man in Hofburg.”

3. MARIE WOOLF

Welcoming the famed writer Virginia Woolf into her fold was something Marie Woolf had no reservations about, but the same wasn’t necessarily true of her new daughter-in-law. Although Marie admired Virginia’s intelligence and considered her her favorite in-law, Virginia perceived Marie’s presence as a reminder of her own tumultuous upbringing that was marked by possessive relatives. “I felt the horror of family life, and the terrible threat to one’s liberty that I used to feel with father,” she once wrote in her diary. “To be attached to her as daughter would be so cruel a fate that I can think of nothing worse.”

4. MARIA CLEMM

Awkwardly, Clemm was both writer Edgar Allan Poe’s aunt and his mother-in-law: the shift in relations came when Poe married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia. (Poe was 27.) While Poe and Clemm were believed to have largely gotten along, she did create friction between her nephew and a friend of his named William Duane. Poe had borrowed a book belonging to Duane that Clemm subsequently sold, forcing Duane to track it down through third-party sellers. With the Poe clan unapologetic, Duane never spoke to them again. Following Poe’s death, Clemm reportedly burned a bunch of valuable correspondence that belonged to him.

5. BONA SFORZA

A woman of considerable influence in 16th century Poland and Lithuania, Bona Sforza prompted many of her son’s associates to tread lightly. When Sigismund II, the heir to the Polish throne, married Elizabeth of Austria, Sforza made her disdain for the bride known—and Elizabeth died two years later. Sigismund’s second wife also became ill and died a short time after exchanging vows. Although it’s unlikely she had anything to do with the deaths of her daughters-in-law, Sigismund eventually grew very wary of his mother and saw her off to Warsaw, where she could presumably no longer interfere with his romantic relations.

6. CATHERINE DE MEDICI

When Mary, Queen of Scots was just 5, she was sent to live in France with her newly betrothed, the 4-year-old dauphin. Though her future mother-in-law, Queen of France Catherine de Medici, wasn’t overly warm towards her, Mary was a court favorite and loved her time in France. However, just two years after her wedding at Notre Dame, an 18-year-old Mary, who had only been Queen Consort for 17 months, was widowed and subsequently shipped back to Scotland by Catherine. And despite accusations of murdering her second husband, Mary, Queen of Scots garnered a better reputation over the years than her former mother-in-law. The Medici matriarch had little use for human nuisances, being implicated in the killing of courtiers and orchestrating the St. Bartholomew’s Massacre that helped to suffocate the idea of Protestantism in France.

7. DOWAGER CIXI

Born in 1835, Dowager Cixi kept a firm grasp in China’s Qing Dynasty for half a century. For some time, her influence was directed through her son, Tongzhi, who became Emperor at the age of 5. When he married Xiaozhe 11 years later, an irritated Cixi guaranteed she would remain his primary influence by allegedly encouraging Tongzhi to keep concubines. Soon after Tongzhi died of smallpox (which is rumored to have actually been syphilis), Xiaozhe and her unborn son also passed away under suspicious circumstances—The New York Times reported at the time that “the circumstances of her death have aroused general suspicion … and there is but little attempt to conceal the belief that the fear of complications in case her expected child should be a son led to the sacrifice of her life.” Without an heir, Cixi was able to retain her influence, leading some to speculate she had been responsible for their deaths.

8. ROSE KENNEDY

As the matriarch of the most famous political family in American history, Rose Kennedy was perceived a model of behavior for the women who married her sons. According to Jackie Kennedy, Rose did not fit the stereotype of the overbearing scold: She offered advice when asked but refused to burden Jackie with demands. After the assassination of JFK and Rose’s husband Joe Kennedy’s stroke, Jackie said it was her relationship with Rose that helped keep her a symbol of strength while her grief was under a microscope.

9. YVONNE MACNAMARA

The discovery of a work-in-progress notebook once owned by acclaimed poet Dylan Thomas in 2014 shed some light on his relationship with mother-in-law Yvonne Macnamara. After marrying Caitlin Macnamara, Thomas was apparently under significant duress when in Yvonne’s presence. He wrote: “I sit and hate my mother-in-law, glowering at her from corners.” Her house, he said, “levels the intelligence.” Adding credence to his opinion, it was considered a minor miracle his notebook was found at all: After finding it, Yvonne had ordered a servant to burn it.

10. MADGE GATES WALLACE

Following the death of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman became President of the United States in 1945—and promptly equipped the White House with another domineering mother-in-law. Madge Gates Wallace, the mother of Truman’s wife, Bess, apparently didn’t hold the office in high regard, believing that her daughter was still too good for the most powerful man in the free world. When Truman ran opposite Thomas Dewey in 1948, Wallace told Truman she admired Dewey greatly.

11. PRINCESS ALICE OF BATTENBERG

Despite having been a royal her whole life (she was the great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and was married into the Greek royal family), Prince Philip’s mother, Princess Alice, had little use for the pageantry that surrounded regality. She gave some of her jewels to be set into the engagement ring when Philip was betrothed to Princess Elizabeth, but when her daughter-in-law was crowned Queen in 1953, Alice attended the Westminster Abbey coronation wearing a wimple and habit. Alice largely stayed out of their business, rejecting their lavish bubble and devoting herself to helping the poor in Greece (for her earlier role in saving a Jewish family during World War II, she was declared one of the “Righteous Among the Nations,” a high honor given by Israel to those who risked their own lives to save Jews during the war), and she even founded her own religious order of nuns before settling in with her family at Buckingham Palace for two years prior to her death in 1969.

Not all of us are delighted by the line of demanding children that shows up to our door on Halloween night. If you’re someone who deliberates whether to even keep the porch light on, we may have a solution.

LEGO brick craftsman Jason Allemann recently posted instructions for building a LEGO candy-launching device that promises to attend to trick-or-treaters while you remain free to sleep or watch horror movies on Netflix.

Allemann used LEGO’s Mindstorms EV3 kit to craft the gizmo, which will toss a small, bite-sized piece of candy when a visitor triggers its motion sensor. A gravity feed keeps a continuous supply of candy ready for the piston arm to lob.

And if you’re looking for more of Allemann’s masterpieces, the craftsman has also designed an automated drawing machine and an Easter egg-decorating bot.

[h/t Gizmodo]

Know of something you think we should cover? Email us at tips@mentalfloss.com.

Maybe you’ve resisted getting into AMC’s zombie melodrama The Walking Dead but your friends have finally worn you down. Or maybe your long-term memory for television is lacking. Either way, the network believes the best way to prepare for the season premiere on Sunday, October 23, is to listen to John Cleese narrate a quick recap of the previous six seasons.

The video is intended mainly for UK viewers, which is why it suggests the debut date is October 24 and why Mr. Cleese refers to something called an “Ofsted inspection.” That’s the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills. There are also a couple mentions of “bezzie” and “boffing,” which you can look up yourself.

If you’re wondering whether Cleese is a genuine admirer of the show or just a voice for hire, it sounds like the former. “I can’t get enough of The Walking Dead,” he told Newsweek. “The beautiful scenery, the emotional depths of the characters and, most of all, the gentle sprinkling of horrific barbarism.”

[h/t /Film]

After finding success with their marshmallow-infused Lucky Charms in the late 1960s, the cereal think tank at General Mills believed they had discovered the next great evolution in processed breakfast: Something so rich in chocolate flavor that it would turn a bowl of milk into mud.

The as-yet-unnamed cereal was developed at the same time as a similar marshmallow and grain concept that used a strawberry flavor. The company wanted to debut them at the same time and asked their advertising agency, Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, to come up with a commercial campaign that would personify the products in the same way Tony the Tiger and the Rice Krispies trio had become grocery aisle celebrities.

“My boss, Tony Jaffe, gave me the assignment,” Laura Levine, a former copywriter for the agency, tells mental_floss. “At the time, Cap’n Crunch was very popular, and Tony wanted something funny.”

It was 1969, and Levine had just been hired by Jaffe. Because there wasn’t yet a free office, she worked at a desk in the secretary’s area, coming up with—and often crossing out—a list of possible duos that could represent both cereals while playing off one another in commercial spots.

Levine doesn’t remember what suggestions she gave Jaffe other than the two he focused on: parodies of Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster, which Levine had dubbed Count Chocula and Franken Berry, respectively.

“The whole concept was monsters, but monsters who were scaredy cats,” she says. “They’d act tough, and then they’d be terrified by the sight of a little kitten.”

Jaffe brought the concept to General Mills, which had an enthusiastic response. Since late movies had started appearing on television, the Universal horror film monsters had become familiar to a new generation of fans, who embraced merchandise like Aurora model kits and Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine.

Levine, illustrator George Cern, and animators Bill Tollis and Bill Melendez defanged them further, making them look and sound kid friendly. Still, Levine recalls that General Mills took nearly two years to refine her scripts, deliberating on wording and design before the cereals made their debut in March of 1971.

The products were an immediate hit: General Mills added Fruity Yummy Mummy, Boo Berry, and Fruit Brute in short order. But the “Monster Cereals,” as they came to be called, had more problems than their questionable nutrition.

In 1972, the press delighted in reporting some gastronomic difficulties suffered by children who ingested the red dye used in Franken Berry. While harmless, it had a tendency to turn their stool pink or red, leading anxious parents to believe their child might be suffering internal bleeding.

In 1972, the journal Pediatrics published a case study that dubbed the condition “Franken Berry stool.” After being hospitalized for four days with suspected rectal hemorrhaging, a boy was found to have been enjoying the cereal in the days prior. Physicians realized it was the culprit.

In 1987, with everyone’s bowels in order, the company came under fire once again when a commemorative cereal box featuring actor Bela Legosi as Dracula was perceived by some to feature the Star of David. Jewish groups protested, offended that a piece of religious iconography was adorning a vampire. General Mills apologized but didn’t recall the 4 million boxes that had been shipped.

 
Despite the occasional misstep—fans also cried foul when the company briefly made Chocula a live-action character in a vaguely disturbing ad—the cereals have become special attractions for Halloween. Since 2010, a rotation of horror mascots are distributed to stores in the fall, feeding the demand of nostalgic fans. Some even hoard boxes to resell on eBay; a man in Fort Collins, Colorado who made an unauthorized Chocula craft beer nearly emptied out his town’s supply.

Although Levine had moved on to another agency just before the cereals hit shelves, she’s happy to be the originator of a character that has been a beloved cereal mascot for 45 years—and she’s not the only one. “It comes up often,” she says. “I do the New York Times crossword every day and remember being very excited when Count Chocula was one of the answers.”

But with the cereals both a regional and seasonal affair, she doesn’t often come across them at home. “In Los Angeles, I don’t ever see them.”

Most everyone is familiar with the tasty, acidic tomato, the fruit that brings life to sandwiches and pasta dinners. But thanks to some firmly held and erroneous beliefs about proper storage, it’s entirely possible you have never actually tasted a tomato that’s lived up to its full potential.

Why? According to a study recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, tomatoes that go directly into cold storage experience changes at the genetic level that irrevocably alter their taste.

The study looked at both common variety tomatoes and heirlooms to examine the differences on a molecular level after they had been stored at 41°F for one, three, or seven days, and then brought out to recover at 68°F. The tomatoes fared okay after one or three days in this chilly environment, but after seven, there were fewer volatile compounds that contribute to the tomato’s flavor, thanks to a reduced number of RNAs encoding transcription factors that would’ve expressed the genes associated with them. (Sugars and acids tend to remain the same, but without the compounds, taste suffers.) Taste testing confirmed that the cooled tomatoes didn’t have the same appeal as those coming directly from the vine.

It’s possible that selective fruit breeding may one day result in a tomato that won’t be affected by cooler temperatures. Until then, study authors say the best way to preserve peak tomato flavor is to buy fresh and then store them at room temperature for up to a week.

[h/t NY Times]

Anyone who has ever cared for a laptop knows the pain of an ailing battery. First, you’re not able to hold a charge for long, and soon you find yourself searching for a replacement. According to Grist.com technology columnist Umbra, there may be a way to avoid that tragic end and prolong the life span of your power source. It involves being just a little more vigilant about when and how you charge your battery.

Your battery life depends on something called depth of discharge, which Umbra defines as “how much of a battery’s power has been used up: 40 percent depth of discharge means it has 60 percent of its life left, and 100 percent means you’ve let the battery run dry.” The larger the average depth of discharge on your battery, the fewer charging cycles you’ll get out of your pack. So, if you’ve made a habit of letting your battery drain to zero before plugging it back in, you’ve likely already done damage to your battery.

Here’s an example. Say you let your battery run dry before recharging it back to 100 percent. That’s one total charging cycle. Doing that habitually means you might get roughly 300 to 500 discharge cycles before it will be time for a replacement.

Here’s how to avoid it: Instead of waiting until your battery is gasping for juice from an outlet, allow it to dip to about 40 percent remaining use before plugging it back in. By not exhausting the power, you put less strain on your battery and might be able to get as many as 4700 discharges out of it.

The other tip? Don’t recharge your battery to the full 100 percent. Once it dips to 40 percent, boost it up to about 80 percent and then pull the plug. A battery that’s engorged with power tends to be more stressed, shortening its life span. To maximize survival potential, it may be best to keep your battery powered between 40 and 80 percent capacity at all times. And if you’re chained to a desk and know you’ll be running AC power on a regular basis, it’s probably best to remove the battery entirely if you can.

If this all sounds like a lot of lithium-ion pampering, it is—but the reward is a battery that’ll be working long after your friends have pitched theirs in designated disposal bins.

[h/t Grist]