Chicago is overrun with rats, and residents hope that feral cats will save the day. As The Wall Street Journal reports, an explosion in the Windy City’s rodent population has caused desperate homeowners and businesses to adopt stray felines from shelters en masse. They hope that if they treat the kitties well, they’ll stick around and hunt neighborhood vermin. But thanks to skyrocketing demand, it’s no longer so easy to adopt an alley cat.

Chicago’s weather is notoriously cold, but last year’s mild winter meant that more baby rats survived to see adulthood. They multiplied, and by September 2016, the city’s rat complaints had increased 40 percent from 2015, according to The WSJ.

In response, animal rescue outlets have received so many requests for cats that one rescue program, the Tree House Humane Society’s Cats at Work program, has a six-month waitlist for adoption. (The Cats at Work Program traps, spays or neuters, and microchips feral felines, and gives them to Chicagoans with rat problems.) Paul Nickerson, the program’s manager, was even offered bribes by a local restaurateur wanting to hurry up the process.

“If people found out I was bumping people to the front of the list they would kill me,” Nickerson told DNAinfo Chicago. “I just can’t do it, it’s just not fair to everybody.”

To encourage their wild guests to make themselves at home, people are treating their adopted feral cats like kings. Local brewery Empirical Brewery built its adopted strays a custom, multi-tier cat condo, and other adoptive cat owners have constructed feeding stations, installed heated cat houses, and spoiled their finicky kitties with tasty food.

But feral cats alone won’t solve Chicago’s rat problem. To curb the rodent population, locals are also employing other methods, including injecting dry ice into rat nests to asphyxiate them, offering public education campaigns, and even launching an official Bureau of Rodent Control under the city’s sanitation department.

[h/t The Wall Street Journal]

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In the 19th century, death was simply part of life. High infant mortality, primitive sanitation, and a lack of basic health care meant that those lucky enough to survive were surrounded with reminders of the brevity of life at all times. And nobody was excluded from elaborate mourning rituals dedicated to celebrating and crying over the dearly departed, not even kids.

Created around 1850, this sampler was painstakingly cross-stitched with silk on cotton, presumably by a young girl learning how to sew. It’s dedicated to “Grandmother” and shows some angels crying at a grave. An anchor—symbol of hope and the cross—leans against the grave, indicating that Grandma has probably gone on to better things.

It must have taken the sampler’s creator a long time to sew it: It’s nearly a foot tall and over 15 inches wide. That’s a lot of cross-stitch, especially for a child.

And its creator was more than likely a kid. Samplers were an important piece of the education of any upper-class girl, who would have learned how to do some decorative arts and needlework at school along with reading, writing, and other “accomplishments” like languages and piano.

Samplers weren’t intended as punishments, though it’s hard to envision a 21st-century kid sitting through a long lesson on the ins and outs of fine needlework. Instead, they were a chance for girls to familiarize themselves with a variety of skills and develop the focus and discipline they’d need to do the nearly endless sewing that was the lot of the era’s women in an age before sewing machines. Even if a girl grew up rich, she would still be expected to create fine embroidery or pitch in on charity sewing projects [PDF].

Mourning samplers became popular in the United States after the death of George Washington, which launched a craze for sad sewing projects with plenty of mourning symbolism.

This sampler is currently housed in the storage facility of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York. Want to see more? Here are the other mourning samplers in the Cooper Hewitt collection—and you can also view a selection of the dizzying array of death-related crafts produced by 19th-century girls.

Before Creepypasta, mysterious audio recordings on YouTube, and disconcerting clown sightings, the best way to terrorize your friends was by repeating a popular urban legend. As a kind of oral history handed down through the years, these stories typically feature a hapless protagonist who is oblivious to a threat lurking right under their nose—or in the back seat.

With Halloween looming, we’ve rounded up some of the more frightening examples of modern folklore to do some fact-checking and see just how much truth is lurking behind the fiction.

1. THE KILLER IN THE BACK SEAT

The Story: A woman is driving alone at night when she glances in her rearview mirror and sees a vehicle bearing down on her. The car continues to follow her on her winding route, rattling the driver. The mystery man even flashes his brights every so often. Finally pulling into a gas station for help, the woman goes running out of her car. When confronted by a policeman or pedestrian, the stalker reveals his true motivation: He noticed that a man was lurking in the woman’s back seat and kept flashing his lights every time he reared up to try and strangle her.

The Truth: Versions of this story began appearing as early as the 1960s, with the “victim” alternately a teenager driving home from a school play or a woman coming back from a social engagement. Occasionally, the tail would be a massive commercial truck that seemed ready to run her over. The fake-out savior might be a gas attendant, a husband, or a cop who roughs up the “stalker” before his altruistic intention is finally revealed.

At least half of the tale is grounded in reality. Over the years, there have been several incidences of lurkers who have stowed away in the rear seat of vehicles, emerging to attack drivers or simply to evade capture by police. In 1964, one criminal made the mistake of hiding in a car owned by a police officer: the detective turned and fired on his uninvited passenger. The addition of a good Samaritan who notices the danger and tails the terrified driver appears to be pure embellishment, however.

2. THE VANISHING HITCHHIKER

The Story: Hitchhikers typically don’t make life easy for the characters in folk history, and this one is no exception. Typically, the story picks up when a couple of young men are driving along and spot an attractive woman walking on the side of the road. They pick her up and she tells them she’d like to go straight home. The drivers indulge her—but by the time they make it to the address she’s provided, she’s fast asleep. Not wishing to disturb her, the men go to the door and inform the woman who answers that her daughter is dozing in their back seat.

The woman is perplexed. Her daughter has been dead for years. When they return to the car, the passenger is gone, with only her clothes remaining.

The Truth: One of the most flexible urban legends of all time, the Vanishing Hitchhiker has been traced as far back as the 19^th century, where horse-and-wagon rides took the place of a car. In Hawaiian versions, the ghost has even been picked up in a rickshaw. The apparition might have a warning before disappearing; in other versions, she’s known to have died a violent or tragic death while in the process of returning home.

The appeal of a spirit with unfinished business in life seems to have no cultural boundaries: Researchers have found variations of the tale in countries like Algeria, Romania, and Pakistan. There’s even a Swedish tale that was first mentioned in 1602 of a ghostly woman walking along a road who warned two passersby of impending plagues and wars before disappearing.

3. THE LICKED HAND

The Story: In the dead of night, a child (or, in some versions, a young or old woman) hears some strange noises. For comfort, the kid lets his or her hand dangle off the edge of the bed so their dog can lick it in a comforting gesture. The process might repeat itself throughout the night, with the child receiving a few more wet kisses before morning.

When the child wakes up and begins walking around the house, they might find the dog hanging from a noose—or worse, their parents bludgeoned to death. A bloody note reads, “Humans can lick, too.”

The Truth: A particularly grisly legend, the Licked Hand made the rounds in the 1960s as a way to scare marshmallow-roasting campers with a gut punch of an ending. But the tale’s first appearance may have come as early as 1871, when someone wrote of a story they had heard in England about a jewel thief who evaded detection by licking the hand of a man who awoke to strange noises, reassuring him it was only his dog.

4. THE GIRL WITH THE RIBBON AROUND HER NECK

The Story: Two lovers meet and grow consumed with one another. But as their meetings become more frequent, the man becomes curious about the fact that his girlfriend always wears a green ribbon tied around her neck. Time and again, he asks if it’s significant; she always answers that it is, but she can’t elaborate.

Before long, the man grows frustrated at how coy she’s being about the ribbon. Despite his anger, she refuses to take it off, or explain why it’s important. Finally, he takes a pair of scissors to her sleeping frame, snips the fabric—and watches as her head slides off her neck and goes bouncing to the floor.    

The Truth: Unlike many legends, there’s really no pretense that the story has roots in reality. Typically, the punchline evokes laughter and shock; some versions have the woman cautioning that her lover “will be sorry” if he pushes the issue, then admonishes him with a “Told you!” as her head travels across the floor.

In all likelihood, it was writer Washington Irving who got the ball—or cranium—rolling. Irving published a short story in 1824 titled “The Adventures of a German Student” where a young man becomes enamored with a Parisian woman whom he meets while she looks on mournfully near a guillotine. After consummating their mutual attraction, she’s found dead in his bed the next morning. A policeman undoes a ribbon tied around her neck, prompting her head to slide off. Irving’s poor protagonist is quickly committed to an insane asylum. It’s believed that Irving heard this story from his friend, the Irish poet Thomas Moore, who had heard it from the British writer Horace Smith.

5. THE HOOK

The Story: Two young lovers are parked in a make-out spot when a news story breaks on the radio: A killer has escaped from custody, with his sole distinguishing feature being a hook in place of an amputated hand. The woman is unsettled and implores her lover to lock the car doors, which he does. But the thought of the hook crashing through the window begins to consume her, and she pleads for them to drive off. Annoyed, the boyfriend agrees. When he drops her at home, she exits the car and notices that a hook is dangling from the door handle.

The Truth: Aside from the hook-hand twist, couples who parked in designated “lover’s lane” spaces had plenty of reason to be terrified. A former military man named Clarence Hill was convicted in 1942 of several murders in Pennsylvania, with Hill creeping up on unsuspecting car occupants and shooting them through the windows. These attacks and others made for ripe stories over avoiding necking in parked cars in the 1960s: even Ann Landers printed the tale as a “warning” to hormonal teens.

6. THE BABYSITTER WHO ISN’T ALONE

The Story: A teenage girl agrees to sit for a trio of young children while their parents enjoy a night out. At first, the evening is almost mundane: With the kids in bed, the sitter chats with friends and finds ways to pass the time. But then the phone begins to ring. On the line is a sinister voice who advises her to check the children. After multiple calls, the sitter finally dials the police, who phone back with a shocking warning: The calls have been coming from inside the house. The murderous caller was upstairs with the children the entire time.

The Truth: Thanks to the 1979 film When a Stranger Calls, which used this story as the premise for its riveting opening sequence, this might be the most infamous urban legend of all time. The story has been widely told since 1960, with some versions indicating both the children and the sitter meet a bloody end.

The emergence of the story seems to coincide with a rash of media reports about babysitters who were assaulted or even murdered in the ‘50s and ‘60s, lending credence to the idea that it likely came out of a fear of leaving a vulnerable young woman alone in a strange house. Some folklore theorists have also observed that the “man upstairs” conceit spoke to a cultural rebellion over women taking increasingly dominant positions in society instead of adhering to their role as domestic caretakers. Left to her own devices, the babysitter fails to protect the children from harm.

Was it anti-feminist propaganda? Perhaps. But the Babysitter Who Isn’t Alone trope also speaks to a pretty primal fear of being helpless to guard yourself or others from unseen forces. And two-line phones.

All images courtesy of iStock.

As more of our work, purchases, and interactions take place online, the state of digital privacy becomes a growing concern. Web users worried about how their personal data is being used will soon be able to rest a little easier, thanks to new rules passed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on October 27. As The Washington Post reports, the FCC imposed unprecedented regulations on internet providers this Thursday in a three-to-two vote.

The new rules forbid providers from using or sharing personal user data with third parties like advertisers unless explicit consent is given. This covers location data, search histories, and information mined from emails. If users agree to being tracked online, providers will be required to tell them what information is being collected and for what purpose. Users can expect to see updated privacy policies from websites, as well as possible incentives like discounts to persuade users to hand over the rights to their data.

The decision is troubling news for big companies like Verizon and AT&T, who might push back against regulations with legal action. But in a time when more and more web giants are relaxing their privacy standards, many are hailing the move as a victory for web users. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler, the commissioner who led the initiative, told The Washington Post, “It’s the consumers’ information. How it is used should be the consumers’ choice, not the choice of some corporate algorithm.”

The new laws will only affect internet service providers (ISPs): Individual companies like Facebook and Google, which have both come under fire for their handling of user data, are free to proceed as usual. This discrepancy has been one of the major criticisms from the law’s opponents, but Wheeler hasn’t expressed interest in tackling that part of the web anytime soon.

[h/t The Washington Post]

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The body has a tendency to sprout hair in many strange places: Ears, noses, knuckles. For those afflicted with a rare type of tumor dubbed a limbal dermoid, it can even grow out of an eyeball.

But few follicles cause as much stress as a synophrys, the medical term for the unibrow—hair in the center of the forehead that creates the impression of a single, unified, stern-looking eyebrow.

Waxing, laser treatments, or just old-fashioned shaving can alleviate symptoms. But if you’re curious what actually causes it, you’ll need to turn to your DNA. According to a recent study published in Nature Communications, an investigation of more than 6000 subjects yielded specific genes that were associated with hair density, greying, curling, and brow fusion. Unibrows were found in people (specifically, men) with the gene dubbed PAX3. The paper’s authors theorized that once a feature has been isolated to a specific gene, the cosmetics industry may one day come up with a product that can inhibit or alter its behavior.

That assumes you would want to. While unibrows aren’t the style of choice in the United States, the Asian nation of Tajikistan considers it to be a trademark of beauty. Women lacking in PAX3 use a green herb called usma to fake it, creating a solid line of brow.   

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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