Author: Shaunacy Ferro

You may have your Netflix queue all filled up with scary movies to watch for Halloween, but what about your bookshelf? Here are seven scary short stories that will have you sleeping with the lights on.

1. “THE DAEMON LOVER” // SHIRLEY JACKSON

Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is undeniably the horror writer’s most famous story, but there’s plenty more eerie tales in her oeuvre. “The Daemon Lover,” from the same 1949 collection as “The Lottery,” opens on a woman dressing for her wedding day. Her fiancé, though, never shows up, leading her on an increasingly anxious journey to figure out where he went—and if he exists at all. The full text can be read online, or you can buy an audio version read by the author herself.

2. “OH WHISTLE, AND I’LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD” // M.R. JAMES

Though he spent his days a medievalist scholar, the early 20th century writer M.R. James is best known for his horror stories—he has been called “the most influential author of ghost stories in literary history,” in fact. “Oh Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad,” published in 1904, is one of his most famous stories. It follows a professor who digs up an old whistle that, when blown, summons a dangerous specter. It’s online on here, or you can get a hard copy from Amazon.

3. “THE BLOODY CHAMBER” // ANGELA CARTER

In the title story of Angela Carter’s 1979 book of reimagined fairy tales, a young bride’s wealthy new husband goes away on business, leaving her with keys to every room in the house. He tells her not to go into one room at the end of the hall. Predictably, her curiosity gets the better of her, and inside, she discovers the corpses of her husband’s previous wives. Carter’s Gothic, often frankly sexual tales shocked readers at the time of their publication, but she’s now considered a feminist must-read.

4. “CHILDREN OF THE CORN” // STEPHEN KING

The prolific horror master’s 1977 short story set in a fictional town in Nebraska has been referenced in everything from Eminem’s raps to Wreck-It Ralph. In it, a couple trying to save their marriage with an ill-fated road trip run over a child darting out of the corn fields onto the road—only to discover that his throat was slit before they hit him. Things only get spookier after they drive into the nearby town of Gatlin. It’s available as an ebook for 99 cents. Once you finish the story, the 1984 movie adaptation is streaming for free until November 1.

5. “THE DUALITISTS” // BRAM STOKER

Dracula may have been his masterpiece, but Bram Stoker could churn out a delightful horror story on the small scale, too. “The Dualitists” is, per the opinion of his publisher, Dover, “Stoker’s most horrifying story.” In it, two neighborhood boys with an obsession with knives and a penchant for destruction go from victimizing dolls and household objects to torturing rabbits and other pets. And yet, Stoker writes, “the passion for hacking still remained.” When a pair of cherubic toddler twins show up on the scene, things get gory. You can read it for free online.

6. “HAMSTERS VS. WEBSTERS” // PATRICIA HIGHSMITH

The celebrated author of The Talented Mr. Ripley and Strangers on a Train has an entire book of stories devoted to grisly tales of everyday pets and pests turning violent. If you have a fear of rodents, best not to read “Hamsters vs. Websters,” a story of a boy’s careful hamster husbandry gone awry. The hamsters aren’t the only ones with murderous intent, either. The whole collection is on Amazon for $14.

7. “EQUINOX” // JOHN AJVIDE LINDQVIST

In this short story by John Ajvide Lindqvist, the Swedish writer behind the vampire novel Let the Right One In, a woman house sitting for her neighbor finds a disturbing surprise. In 2013, Booklist Review called the whole collection, titled Let the Old Dreams Die, “terribly effective horror fiction.” You can get a used copy of the book on Amazon for less than $5, but be warned: You may not want to read it in the dark.

Most research centers don’t allow smoking in the lab, but the Wyss Institute at Harvard University is a little different. There, researchers have built a device that can smoke 10 cigarettes at a time, as STAT reports.

The smoking machine, described in a recent paper in Cell Systems, is helping advance research on the ways in which smoking and vaping affect lung cells, with a focus on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which is most often caused by smoking. The machine can “breathe” in and out with a respirator, mimicking the way people take in air and smoke at the same time. It’s lined with a chip containing the cells from the lung’s smallest passageways, bronchioles, with mucus and cilia (hair-like projections that move liquids and particles), as found in a real lung.

In this study, the researchers lined the “smoking airway-on-a-chip” with diseased lung cells and healthy lung cells. They were able to identify 147 genes whose expression differed based on their disease status. In another test, they used vapor from e-cigarettes in the machine, showing that vaping changed the way the cilia moved in healthy lung cells.

The smoking machine likely won’t replace animal lung studies entirely, but does provide a convenient way to test smoking’s effects on human lung cells. 

[h/t STAT] 

All images courtesy Benam et al., Cell Systems (2016)

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The reason why older people typically can’t hear very well has very little to do with the functional capabilities of their ears, Co.Exist reports. Instead, as a recent study in the Journal of Neurophysiology (freely available here) investigates, it has more to do with how the brain processes sound, and how that ability deteriorates as we age.

Researchers at the University of Maryland, College Park report that the deterioration is due to aging’s effect on the brain’s midbrain (associated with hearing as well as vision and motor control) and cortex (associated with thought and language). The study examined 17 younger adults and 15 older people with no signs of dementia. They were asked to listen to an audiobook while another narrated audiobook played in the background.

When trying to distinguish between the voices of two different speakers, the midbrains of older adults don’t respond as strongly as those of younger people. The older adults’ brains couldn’t encode the auditory signals as well, and they took longer to process speech, especially when there were two competing voices. The older brain appears to be less capable of picking out one sound out of many.

However, their cortex actually reconstructed the amplitude of the speech they heard in the brain with greater accuracy—an exaggerated response, which may reveal why older people need to pay more attention to process the noise of people talking. As the study’s abstract notes, this response suggests “an age-related over (or inefficient) use of cognitive resources that may explain their difficulty in processing speech targets while trying to ignore interfering noise.”

So the next time you encounter an older individual who is hard of hearing, don’t bother trying to speak louder. It won’t help them hear you any better. Instead, move your conversation to a place with less background noise.

[h/t Co.Exist]
 
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If you want to see architectural gems by world-famous Modernist designers, the 44,000-person city of Columbus, Indiana might be your best bet. The unassuming Midwestern town has an incredible number of buildings by celebrated designers like I.M. Pei and Eero Saarinen, as Co.Design reports.

The city has more than 80 buildings, landscapes, and pieces of public art by world-famous architects and artists, with seven buildings classified as National Historic Landmarks, according to Exhibit Columbus, an arts festival designed to showcase the town’s architectural gems.

Much of this design heritage is due to the endeavors of Joseph Miller, an industrialist whose family founded the Cummins Corporation, a manufacturer of engines and power generators. In 1954, as chairman of the company, he founded a corporate foundation that has supported public architecture ever since. Miller’s goal was to turn Columbus into a town that could attract the best and brightest employees, starting with making sure that it had beautiful schools. In 1957, the foundation began offering grants to pay for architecture fees associated with buildings schools. Later, the foundation began offering grants for all public buildings.

Asa result, Columbus was able to commission award-winning, world-renowned designers like Robert Venturi and John Rauch, who built a firehouse; Richard Meier, who built an elementary school; and Robert A.M. Stern, who designed a county hospital expansion. (The full list of grant winners is on the Cummins website [PDF].) Other notable mid-century buildings in town were designed by Eliel Saarinen (with furniture by Charles Eames), his son Eero Saarinen, and I.M. Pei.

“The influence of architecture with which we are surrounded in our youth affects our lives, our standards, our tastes when we are grown, just as the influence of the parents and teachers with which we are surrounded in our youth affects us as adults,” Miller, who died in 2004, once explained of his passion for good public design.

Exhibit Columbus, in its inaugural year, hopes to invigorate interest in great architecture and design in the city by awarding grants to artists to design and install temporary installations inspired by one of the historic buildings in Columbus.

[h/t Co.Design]

All images courtesy Landmark Columbus.

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Iconic music videos don’t just come together on the first try, but we rarely get to see the magic behind the final result. In the case of Michael Jackson’s hit “Thriller,” someone was kind enough to film some of the rehearsals so that we can see how one of the most famous music videos in history came together.

Because we know you can’t get enough of MJ’s dance moves, this video intersperses footage from the actual music video with some of the accompanying rehearsals. Notably, it includes his one-on-one rehearsals with co-star Ola Ray.

All images via YouTube

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You may be too old to beg your neighbors for candy, but once you’re an adult, Halloween offers plenty of other seasonal treats to look forward to. This includes a whole bunch of limited-run beers with scary label art and spine-tingling (and tongue-tingling) flavors. Here are seven appropriately themed beers to stock your Halloween party with.

1. LITTLE HORROR OF HOPS // SHIPYARD BREWING

True to its name, Shipyard’s rye IPA packs a fiercely hoppy punch. The horror part comes in when you look closely at the label, which depicts a terrifyingly toothy hop-monster dripping blood. It’s only available between September and November, so get it while you can.

2. BRAAAIINS! PUMPKIN ALE FOR ZOMBIES // SPRING HOUSE BREWING

Spring House’s brews aren’t available many places outside the Pennsylvania region, but if you find yourself in Lancaster this fall, head to one of their brewpubs to get a pint of their Braaaiins! Pumpkin Ale for Zombies. The brewery blends real pumpkin into the mash and adds a few autumn spices, making it the perfect boozy, bubbly pumpkin spice experience you and your undead friends have been looking for.

3. NOSFERATU IMPERIAL RED ALE // GREAT LAKES BREWING

This hair-raising hoppy ale is named after the titular character in the 1922 German vampire film, a brazen rip-off of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Stoker thought “Nosferatu” meant “vampire” in Romanian, and used the term as a synonym in his book, but it may actually be a mistranslation of a Romanian word for “unbearable” or “horrid,” nesuferit. Great Lakes’ vampiric brew has an 8 percent ABV, so watch that you don’t let it make you into the monster.

4. DEAD GUY ALE // ROGUE BREWING

Rogue’s German-style Maibock ale is available year-round, but during the fall, it really plays up its eerie name, because in honor of Halloween, the bottles glow in the dark. Inside, you’ll find the same malty, caramel ale as always. But you’ll feel really, really cool toasting with it in a dim room.

5. MEPHISTOPHELES // AVERY BREWING

Boulder, Colorado’s Avery Brewing takes its demonic ales very seriously. In fact, the brewery has a whole line of them. The Mephistopheles stout, named after the Faustian evil spirit, is “a tangled and intricate labyrinth of bittersweet rapture,” according to the brewery. If that sounds a little too terrifying, you can also get your fall kicks with their Pump[KY]n porter, which is aged in bourbon barrels for that little extra something.

6. FREAKTOBERFEST // CONEY ISLAND BREWING

Coney Island’s take on the ubiquitous pumpkin beer has an unexpected twist: coffee. It’s brewed with beans from Brooklyn’s Cafe Grumpy, creating a pumpkin ale with the slightest hint of chocolatey espresso. It smells like a coffeeshop, but it tastes like you’re enjoying a really great piece of pie with your cup of joe. If that doesn’t sound scary enough for Halloween, just check out the crazed eyes of the carny on the label.

7. DEATH HOPPY BLACK ALE // SHMALTZ BREWING

Despite the Day-of-the-Dead-inspired branding, the upstate New York brewery Shmaltz says its Death Hoppy Black Ale is actually a nod to Jewish mourning traditions. Seven kinds of hops, seven kinds of malts, and the 7 percent ABV are a nod to the seven days of sitting shiva. But hopefully the only thing you’ll be mourning is running out of beer.

All images courtesy their respective breweries unless otherwise indicated

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A majority of people in the U.S. with mental health issues aren’t getting help, according to Mental Health America’s newly released rankings of all 50 states and Washington, D.C. However, not all states were equally bad for those suffering from mental illness, as  The Huffington Post reports. The study found that Nevada was the worst at addressing the mental health needs of its residents. Connecticut ranked No. 1.

The research found that out of 40 million Americans with mental health concerns, 56 percent of adults aren’t receiving treatment for their conditions. The rankings were determined according to 15 measures of publicly available data on the number of adults and young people with mental illness or addiction issues in each state, as well as the rates of treatment, insurance coverage, medical costs, and the availability of mental health providers.

 
Nevada’s poor showing in the rankings reflects the lack of treatment rates for adults with mental illness and a shortage of available mental health professionals to provide that treatment. More than 67 percent of adults with mental health issues in the state aren’t receiving treatment, and there is only one mental health worker per 570 people. The rates of young people not receiving treatment for depression were even worse, at almost 72 percent.

But even the best states aren’t doing great. The current best state for mental health treatment, Connecticut, only has a little more than 50 percent of its mentally ill adult population in treatment, and one mental health worker for every 300 people.

“It isn’t just about what states are red and what states are blue,” Mental Health America CEO Paul Gionfriddo said in a press release accompanying the rankings. There are left-leaning states and right-leaning states on either end of the list. “But political environments in states do seem to matter,” he said. “Those that invest more in mental health clearly have to throw away less money on jails and prisons.” Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama had the least access to mental health care in the rankings (Alabama has one mental health worker for every 1200 people), and in turn, the highest rates of imprisonment. There are 57,000 prisoners with mental health conditions in those three states.

[h/t The Huffington Post]

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Singapore is poised to launch the world’s largest floating solar panel system by the end of the year, Inhabitat reports via ChannelNews Asia. Phase one of the photovoltaic test bed includes 10 different systems floating in the Tengeh Reservoir in western Singapore, due to be operational in the next few months, according to a speech given by Masagos Zulkifli, Singapore’s environmental minister, at the Asia Clean Energy Summit.

The pilot project will test not only the energy efficiency of the panels, but the environmental impact on the ecosystem below, since the system will block out light over that stretch of water. It will also reduce water evaporation from the reservoir to some extent, which might change the efficiency of the solar panels by cooling them down.

By the end of the year, it should be powering part of the national energy grid—three years after the project was originally due to go online. After the six-month pilot, ChannelNews Asia reports, two of the different photovoltaic systems will be tested on a larger scale. The first phase systems will continue to be operational for three to six years, though, along with the phase two systems.

Singapore is considered a model for green initiatives in Asia, especially with regard to environmentally friendly buildings. However, while the new floating solar panel testing is the largest pilot in the world, it’s not the first. Similar projects already exist in Australia, India, and the U.S., and Japan is poised to install a record 50,904 panels over a reservoir within two years. But the floating systems are especially relevant to Singapore, a geographically small city-state surrounded by water.

“Given our geography, solar photovoltaic (PV) systems are a key technology in Singapore’s efforts to harness renewable energy,” Zulkifli said in his speech on October 25. “Floating PV systems, i.e. those installed over our water bodies, not only help to overcome land constraints, but also have the potential to reduce evaporative losses from our reservoirs.”

[h/t Inhabitat]

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It’s high time you upgraded your office supplies. Whether you’re taking notes, pursuing your creative passion, or jotting down to-do lists, a nice set of writing tools can go a long way toward keeping you inspired. Here are five purchases that can improve your desk time immediately:

1. A BEAUTIFUL NOTEBOOK

 
Those black-and-white marbled composition notebooks are classics, but the flimsy 50-cent cardboard booklets you scribbled your history notes in likely don’t cut it anymore. Aron Fay of the acclaimed design firm Pentagram has redesigned “an elegant, sophisticated, and long-lasting version of the classic composition notebook” called comp.

“With all the new advances in the fields of papermaking, printing, and binding since [the origin of the composition book in] the 1800s, I was interested in what it would be like to create a notebook that uses the new printing and binding technologies and the highest quality materials possible, while still maintaining the nostalgic pattern that we all know and love,” he writes in his crowdfunding call on Kickstarter.

The notebook opens to lie completely flat, unlike your run-of-the-mill composition book, and is made with a cloth binding and high-quality, poster-thickness paper that comes either lined or unlined. It’s $19 and should ship sometime in April 2017. (And if you’re a notebook nerd, the Kickstarter page is worth checking out purely for the history of the composition book it provides.)

2. A SMARTPEN

 
You no longer need to choose between the benefits and portability of writing by hand and the convenience of having a digital, typed copy of your notes. A smartpen allows you to write in a notebook, but send a digital version to an app like Evernote, your phone, or your email. Moleskine’s Smart Writing Set transfers your notes to its mobile app in real-time, and depending on how legible your writing is, it will convert your handwriting to text. You can adjust colors and line thickness in the app, too, and if you aren’t near your phone, the pen has enough memory to store your notes and upload them when you connect later.

The Moleskine set looks elegant and has some neat functionality, but at $200, it is pricier than other smartpens. Other slightly less expensive options that get the job done (albeit without the real-time app upload) include the $169 Neo, whose technology powers Moleskine’s pen, or one of Livescribe’s pens, which start at $129 and are known for their excellent ability to record audio and sync it with your notes.

3. A GREAT, NOT-SO-SMART PEN

 
OK, so maybe you’re not going to use your $200 smartpen for everything. Sometimes you just need a utilitarian, affordable, non-smudgy, never-runs-out-of-battery pen that you can buy in bulk and lose constantly. The exceedingly thorough reviewers at The Wirecutter recommend the Uni-ball Jetstream for its smooth writing ability and quick-dry ink. It’s $9 for a pack of three on Amazon and comes in either fine or bold point.

For a slightly fancier-feeling writing experience, New York magazine’s The Strategist is gaga for the Japanese-made Midori Brass Ballpoint (pictured at top), a light, collapsible pen that only measures a few inches long in its compressed state. It retails for $17.

4. AMAZING PAPER CLIPS

 
If you have a penchant for writing on loose-leaf, class up your scattered papers with a really nice paper clip. Like, really nice. Rad and Hungry’s Jorge Clip, a brass design the company sources from a Brazilian artisan, is pretty enough to use as home decor. It’s big enough to use as a key ring, a bookmark, or to hold together the beginning chapters of that novel you’re working on. It’s $20.

5. STORAGE SO PRETTY YOU’LL WANT TO STAY ORGANIZED

 
It can be hard to get down to work when your desk is littered with office supplies and papers you’re not ready to file away just yet. If there’s anything that can get you amped about organizing your thumb tacks and staples, it’s the $16 Niu Desk Set, also made by Rad and Hungry. The cork-and-aluminum tray comes loaded with puzzle-piece storage blocks that give you a dedicated place to put your pens, Post-its, tape dispenser, and more.

There’s also a more whimsical, less rigidly segmented option in Poppin’s colorful trays for papers and for odds and ends. They come in a wide spectrum of hues, shapes, and sizes and cost between $5 and $24.

And if even that seems too pricey for your stray office supplies, Muji’s translucent storage boxes look elegant enough that no one will guess they only cost $1.50.

You can feel pretty good about drinking a new variety of beer from Patagonia. It’s designed to fight climate change with more sustainable ingredients than the average brew, Esquire reports.

Patagonia Provisions, the food offshoot of the California-based outdoor apparel company, teamed up with Portland’s Hopworks Urban Brewery to make Long Root Ale, a northwest-style beer that raises the standards for what it means to be a sustainable beer.

The organic pale ale is made with Kernza, a perennial variety of wheat engineered to be better for the environment than current staple crops. Its deep roots can survive winter temperatures and help prevent soil erosion. It’s been bred with an eye toward disease resistance to reduce pesticide needs and doesn’t need as much water as traditional wheat. This is the first time the grain has been used commercially.

Long Root Ale is also made with organic barley, yeast, and hops from the Pacific Northwest, and reportedly tastes slightly spicy with grapefruit aromas and a dry finish. The beer can be found at Whole Foods as well as other stores on the West Coast.

[h/t Esquire]

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