Page 1891 – fakuto

October 30, 2016

In the early 1900s Wagner von Jauregg treated…

In the early 1900s Wagner von Jauregg treated syphilis patients with malaria (winning the Nobel Prize). The patients developed malaria, causing a severe fever and killed the syphilis bacteria. Then given the malaria drug quinine and cured. This was used until the development of penicillin.

October 30, 2016

4 Times the Weather Was Frightening on Halloween

Dennis Mersereau

filed under: weather

Image credit:

John Moore/Getty Images

The weather enjoys causing mischief on Halloween. Even though this day isn’t typically a traveling holiday in the United States, the weather can still determine whether it’s a fun night of costumes and sweets or a rainy mess that can ruin weeks of excitement and preparation. Thankfully, Halloween 2016 looks spectacular across most of the United States. As of Friday October 28, the forecast for October 31 anticipates a familiar scenario these days—a ridge of high pressure will blanket most of the country with calm and warmer-than-normal temperatures, with wet weather creeping through the Upper Midwest and northern Rocky Mountains. The Northeast will be chilly for trick-or-treaters, but it pales in comparison to the spooky weather that can plague people celebrating this fun day. Here’s a look at some not-too-thrilling storms that made for scary times in years past.

1. THE PERFECT STORM, 1991

A weather map from the morning of October 31, 1991, showing the Perfect Storm off the coast of New Jersey and a developing blizzard over the central Plains. Image Credit: NOAA

Few storms have reached the legendary status of the Perfect Storm, a ghoulish nor’easter/hurricane hybrid that meandered off the East Coast of the United States for a few days around Halloween in 1991. The storm began as a nor’easter—a strong type of low-pressure system named for the powerful northeasterly winds they bring to the coast—off the Canadian Maritimes, collecting its strength both from strong upper-level winds and by absorbing the remnants of Hurricane Grace. The nor’easter briefly developed into an unnamed hurricane, adding to both its intensity and unusual nature.

Forecasters at the time said that the storm formed in “perfect” conditions (hence its nickname) to cause headaches up and down the coast. The storm’s strong winds generated enormous waves and caused destructive coastal flooding as far south as North Carolina. The storm produced a 5-foot storm surge in Boston, Massachusetts, and waves there reached the height of a three-story building. Thirteen people died during The Perfect Storm—six of them perished when a ship named the Andrea Gail encountered rough waves. This tragedy at sea would become the basis for the 1997 book The Perfect Storm and the popular 2000 film of the same name.

2. THE HALLOWEEN BLIZZARD OF 1991

The Perfect Storm wasn’t the only hazard on Halloween in 1991. While that torrent churned over the western Atlantic Ocean, another powerful storm was developing a few thousand miles to the west over the center of the United States. A strong low-pressure system quickly got its act together during the day on Halloween as it raced northeast toward the Great Lakes, dragging bitterly cold air south from Canada while pumping tropical moisture north from the Gulf of Mexico.

This combination of high moisture and freezing air led to copious amounts of snow in the Upper Midwest, falling so hard and so fast that many folks couldn’t go out trick-or-treating that night. By the time the skies cleared out a day or two later, residents found their towns buried under historic amounts of snow. The airport that serves Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, measured 28.4 inches of snow by the end of the storm, an all-time record for one snowstorm that still stands today. In the far northeastern corner of the state, Duluth, Minnesota, recorded just over three feet of snow—36.9 inches—making it the highest snowfall total ever recorded in one storm in the entire state of Minnesota.

3. THE HALLOWEEN NOR’EASTER, 2011

A blanket of snow across the Northeast on October 30, 2011. Image Credit: MODIS Today

October is a rough time to live in the Northeast. Kids growing up on the East Coast are used to having a more volatile Halloween than their counterparts around the rest of the country, as they found out in 2011 when a nor’easter dropped 1 to 2 feet of snow on communities from Virginia to Maine.

It usually doesn’t get cold enough to see much more than flurries in the Mid-Atlantic or lower elevations in the Northeast until after Thanksgiving, but a strong nor’easter barreled its way up the coast just before Halloween and snowed its way into the history books. The cold air that spiraled around the back of the storm tapped into deep tropical moisture to produce a heavy, wet snow across areas that still hadn’t seen all of the leaves fall off the trees. The weight of the leaves and the wet snow easily brought down trees and power lines, knocking out power for several weeks in the hardest-hit areas. The storm reportedly caused more than $3 billion in damages. Many kids in the affected areas couldn’t go trick-or-treating after the storm, forcing many communities to cancel Halloween activities or put them off until crews could clear away the snow and debris.

4. HURRICANE SANDY, 2012

A visible satellite image of Hurricane Sandy on October 28, 2012. Image Credit: NOAA/NASA

Things got even worse in the Northeast just one year later. One of the worst hurricanes to strike the United States in the past two decades was Hurricane Sandy, an unusual storm that also took advantage of “perfect” conditions in order to turn into a colossal disaster for tens of millions of people.

Hurricane Sandy approached a complicated environment over the Northeast during the last few days of October in 2012. As the category 1 hurricane drew closer to the New Jersey coast, it gradually lost its tropical characteristics as it started to feed its energy from the jet stream above rather than thunderstorms at the center of the storm. Once the hurricane reached shore, it had transitioned into what was essentially the most powerful nor’easter ever recorded. This transition from a large hurricane into an even larger nor’easter raked damaging winds over an area nearly 1000 miles wide at the storm’s largest extent, an immense wind field that pushed a historic and deadly storm surge into the coast.

The evacuations and damage from the storm forced Halloween to the backburner for many coastal communities, but the storm didn’t stop at the coast. During the day on Halloween, the remnants of Hurricane Sandy continued pushing inland, making the evening a cold, dreary, and sometimes snowy mess for the Appalachians and Great Lakes region.

October 30, 2016 – 8:00am

October 30, 2016

Take Your Pet ‘Camping’ in an Animal-Sized Trailer

Kirstin Fawcett

filed under: Animals, fun

Image credit:

Straight Line Designs Inc. // Judson Beaumont.

If you want to give your indoor pet a taste of outdoor life, Outside reports that Canadian artist/designer Judson Beaumont has designed a line of whimsical, animal-sized trailers.

Modeled after vintage Airstreams and mobile homes, Beaumont’s tiny units come equipped with basic (or not so basic) necessities like stainless steel water and food cups and LED lights. You can even order them in different colors, styles, and sizes, and request customized license plates.

For now, the trailers are only designed for pets up to 20 pounds, and unlike your full-sized camper, they aren’t waterproof. So unless you’re anticipating clear skies, it’s probably best for your pooch to go “camping” in your living room instead of the backyard.

You can view a selection of Beaumont’s trailers below, or visit his website for more information.

All photographs courtesy of Straight Line Designs Inc. // Judson Beaumont.

[h/t Outside]

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

October 30, 2016 – 6:00am

October 30, 2016

Cold Welding Metal in Space (Video)

Chris Higgins

filed under: space, video

Image credit:

NASA (Public Domain)

On the Gemini IV mission, NASA sent out Ed White as the first American astronaut to attempt a spacewalk. After thoroughly enjoying his trip outside the capsule, White returned…but the hatch wouldn’t close properly. It was a real chore for the astronauts to wrench the hatch closed. In assessing what happened, NASA engineers wondered: Had the hatch undergone “cold welding?”

As Derek from Veritasium explains in the video below, “In space, if two metals come into contact, they can actually fuse together without the need for heat or melting of either piece.” As he promptly continues, this is not what happened to the hatch on Gemini IV. But it has happened on space missions, and it’s a real problem for metals we send into space.

Watch this video for a detailed explanation of how cold welding works, why it happens less than we might fear, and how it has actually occurred in space.

(Photo credit: NASA, via Wikimedia Commons.)

October 30, 2016 – 4:00am

October 30, 2016

Share Animal Illustrations and Fun Facts With These Colorable Postcards

Rebecca OConnell

filed under: Animals

Sharing trivia with friends has never been easier in our age of social media, but there’s still something charming about sending something through the mail. Amazing Animal Facts—previously a book and now a box of cards—allows you to send info-packed notes to your friends and family. The postcards feature animal-related facts along with illustrations by Sweden-based artist Maja Säfström.

The box set, which includes 50 cards, has five categories to choose from: sea, forest, field, jungle, and sky. Each card is dedicated to a different animal and comes with one to five different facts about the species. (For example, did you know that blue whales have belly buttons?) As a fun twist, all the cards are in black and white, so you can customize and color them to your liking. Once you finish coloring and adding a personal note, you can apply a stamp and pop it in the mail.

You can grab one of these sets on Amazon for $20.

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

October 30, 2016 – 12:00am

October 30, 2016

What’s in Citrus-Scented Air Fresheners? (Video)

Chris Higgins

filed under: chemistry, video

Image credit:

YouTube // National Geographic

In this installment of Ingredients, chemist George Zaidan digs into a key ingredient of many citrus-scented air fresheners: Limonene. In addition to being a killer band name, Limonene is found in citrus peels, and it happens to react with ozone to create formaldehyde.

Before we go nuts on this formaldehyde thing, it’s important to be clear that the amount of formaldehyde is low, and likely not an issue unless you’re going vastly overboard with ozone generators (like some “air cleaners”) and a lot of citrus-scented products. But it’s fascinating to explore how the chemical interplay between two otherwise innocuous consumer products—citrus-scented air fresheners and ozone-producing “air cleaners”—can create a really nasty substance.

For five minutes of useful chemistry advice, tune in:

For more on the issues Zaidan mentions with ozone-producing air cleaners, check the various links in the YouTube video description. If you’re more of a direct-link person, check out this explainer from the California E.P.A. or this PDF fact sheet from the Connecticut Department of Public Health.

October 29, 2016 – 8:00pm

October 29, 2016

How to Win the Oreo Twist Game Every Single Time

Caitlin Schneider

filed under: Food, science, fun

Image credit:

iStock

Oreo cookies are full of mysteries, not the least of which is the design of the wafer itself. But for many of us who’ve sat on either side of a cream-filled Oreo and twisted to see who got more of the delicious insides, another question has prevailed: What strategy, if any, can one apply to the game? We now have an answer, and it only took three Princeton University aerospace engineers to figure it out.

As Gizmodo reports, John Cannarella, Dan Quinn, and Joshua Spechler were graduate students in 2014 when they first started to consider the question surrounding the world’s most famous sandwich cookie. They did a bit of research and, when they found that no one had tackled the question, set to work hunting for an answer.

“It’s interesting from an engineering standpoint since the cookie is similar to many modern composites: a strong brittle layer (the wafer) for strength coupled with a weaker ductile layer (the cream) for toughness,” Cannarella told Quartz. “Shatterproof glass and batteries are other good examples of material systems that are mechanically analogous to Oreos.”

Sure, yeah, OK. But it’s also really important for winning playground face-offs in the ’90s.

To get a better sense of the physics at play, the team analyzed the cookie, putting it through rigorous experiments involving both robotic testers and real-life participants. They went through thousands of Oreos and, in the end, made a discovery that will help you win your cookie war every time: In any given box of Oreos, the cream ends up on the same side for every single cookie.

In other words, if you’re headed into battle, test a cookie from the box ahead of time. If you pull one out, twist it, and the cream is on side closest to the back of the box, that will be true for every cookie, in every row.

While Nabisco isn’t forthcoming about the cookie-making process, Quartz notes that a 2010 episode of How It’s Made has an illuminating look at the process behind Newman-O’s, which in turn helps to shed some light on the manufacturing methodology of Oreos. To assemble the sandwich cookies, a machine applies a dollop of cream onto one cookie and then finishes it with another. The physicists guess that the first wafer probably has a better hold on the cream (though there’s no way to be sure) and that ends up being the victory cookie in the twist game.

And there you have it. Go forth and share a cookie. Oh and we’re not necessarily saying you should employ the test cookie method to win, that would be cheating. We’re just the messengers here.

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

October 29, 2016 – 4:00pm

October 29, 2016

Scientists found that men wearing white t-shirts…

Scientists found that men wearing white t-shirts with a large black letter “T” printed on the front were 12% more attractive to women. The t-shirt creates the illusion of broadened shoulders and a slim waist, a male body shape women typically find attractive.

October 29, 2016

As much as 7% of the population has experienced…

As much as 7% of the population has experienced waking from sleep and being totally paralyzed but aware as mind and body become out of sync in REM cycles.

October 29, 2016

Grab This Weekend’s Best Amazon Deals While You Can

Smart Shopping Team

Image credit:

amazon / istock

As a recurring feature, our team combs the Web and shares some amazing Amazon deals we’ve turned up. Here’s what caught our eye today, October 29.

Mental Floss has affiliate relationships with certain retailers, including Amazon, and may receive a small percentage of any sale. But we only get commission on items you buy and don’t return, so we’re only happy if you’re happy. Good luck deal hunting!

October 29, 2016 – 11:00am

Amazon Product Id:

B01H7R1ET4

1. THE PERFECT STORM, 1991

2. THE HALLOWEEN BLIZZARD OF 1991

3. THE HALLOWEEN NOR’EASTER, 2011

4. HURRICANE SANDY, 2012

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