People who read way too much on the internet (like me) learn to look for red flags and dismiss any "facts" that seem sketchy. That's a good thing. Then there's Tom Scott (previously at Neatorama), who makes a living by going there and finding out for himself whether something that sounds strange is true or not. So he went to Warsaw to find out if the city uses clams to monitor water quality. It's true! And the process they use is quite interesting. If the water is good, they will open their shells to bathe in it. If something is wrong, they will close up to protect themselves. It's like an early warning system that will alert human experts if the water needs more thorough testing.

The people who run the waterworks also refer to the clams as their colleagues. Instead of eating them after their stint has ended, they release them into the wild. I bet those folks never eat clams.

Gene Roddenberry's original pitch for the TV series Star Trek is enshrined online. The document, dated March 11, 1964, envisions the starship the SS Yorktown visiting the possibly three million planets that contain intelligent life similar to ours. The key to this concept is that a tiny fraction of such planets would have an evolution similar to our own, with just enough differences to make an interesting story. Examples include a world that has already been devastated by nuclear war, another in which women keep men as pets, one that is going through the medieval era, and one where the real intelligent beings are cows. The regular cast of characters could find themselves in a historical scene, or alternate history, or a futuristic society... plus there's always the possibility of a straight-up alien world.

The document describes the main characters, which were changed quite a bit before the show made it to air. The character who became Mr. Spock was named "Mr. Spook," had red skin, and was described as rather satanic-looking. The ship's navigator was a South American named José Ortegas. The second in command was an emotionless woman. 

But the best part of the pitch are the many proposed episodes. Some you will recognize as stories that were used, while others are so off-the-wall they were never heard of again. And there are some you can see were altered quite a bit from the original concept before production. But the name Star Trek was already perfect. -via Boing Boing

Broken Peach puts a little extra pizzazz in their songs for Halloween. Last year they graced the world with a slasher version of "Tainted Love," and this year we get "Don't You Want Me," originally by The Human League. If you're not familiar with the song from 1982, you'll still recognize the story as that from the many movie versions of A Star Is Born. Broken Peach also invites you to listen to their full concert called The Night of the Halloween Specials, which was recorded live in one take. -via Metafilter

Sleepwalking is totally separate from acting out one's dreams. It is more like zombie behavior. Yes, sleepwalking occurs in the deepest part of sleep, and we don't have control over what we do when sleepwalking. So how do we do it? That's the creepy part. We have a lot of behaviors that don't require conscious control, including walking, eating, and even driving while we're asleep! You know how your mind sometimes drifts off while you're driving and you end up at some familiar location that wasn't where you were going? That's how we act when we sleepwalk, but its even more dangerous because we are really asleep, often with our eyes closed. This TED-Ed lesson from Emmanuel During explains what is really happening during a sleepwalking incident.

We know about haunted houses, asylums, hospitals, hotels, castles, and other buildings, but nature has its own legends of horror that scare people even today. Forests can be scary even without ghost stories attached to them, and sometimes it's even a single tree that is said to be haunted, like the haunted apple tree in Douglass, Massachusetts.

Legend says that, in the 1800s, a traveling peddler stopped to rest under this apple tree, and someone—likely the orchard owner himself—slashed the peddler’s throat and killed him. The victim’s spirit haunted the murderer, following him everywhere, until the man moved away to escape it. Passersby later reported seeing apparition standing under the apple tree, holding its throat and crying shrilly. The flesh of the apples grown on this tree are stained red, reminiscent of the blood that gushed from the peddler’s neck.

Read about ten such haunted trees and forests and the legends behind them at Mental Floss.

Polaris Dawn is a planned private space mission from SpaceX that may be launched as early as March of 2023. The four astronauts training for the mission are pictured above, but if you look long enough, you'll see that their left eyes do not match their right eyes. It's not Photoshop; those are contact lenses, developed for a specific science reason.

The University of Colorado has been studying a condition called spaceflight associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS). That's when people who spend time in space experience swollen optic nerves and changes in the eye's shape. These hi-tech contact lenses equipped with micro-sensors will measure the changes in the eye as space flight proceeds. It is hoped that the data will test the theory that shifting fluid is responsible for SANS.  

Eye will be back…for research. Polaris Dawn will carry with us on our mission 38 experiments from 23 partner institutions, including this device that measures intraocular pressure through a contact lens. See https://t.co/VHKqpel7BB for more! pic.twitter.com/QBGqziW4Ij

— Anna Menon (@annawmenon) October 24, 2022

-via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Polaris Dawn)

The feeling of fear can be pretty unpleasant, but we developed it for a reason. That scary feeling is a warning that things are not right, and we need to flee or hide or fight or do something for our own safety. But humans also seek out fear experiences, from climbing trees to watching scary movies to bungee jumping, for the thrill of fear they give us. Is that just for the adrenaline rush or is there a benefit to seeking out fear?

The scientists at the Recreational Fear Lab in Denmark think it may be an instinctive educational technique. Just the right amount of fear, in a fairly controlled situation, helps us learn to deal with real world fear. One study shows that horror movie buffs fared better psychologically during the COVID-19 lockdown than those who never watched scary films. Maybe a regular dose of moderate fear helps us to cope with those feelings, or learn to control them. Read more about the effects of recreational fear at Smithsonian.

Read more about the Recreational Fear Lab and its haunted attraction from Dystopia Entertainment at Atlas Obscura.

This is not just a LEGO Ferris wheel, which would be impressive by itself. This one loads and unloads sports balls (um, "passengers") by machine into the 64 carriages as it goes along. Designing this and keeping it going in sync is quite an accomplishment! Berthil van Beek built this contraption for the Eurobricks TC23 competition. Just watching this machine do its thing is soothing and satisfying. We also get an idea of the work involved. When van Beek loads 64 balls and finds that two fell along the way, he redesigns the mechanism to make sure that doesn't happen again. I would be surprised if I got one to load properly! -via Geeks Are Sexy

In 1929, a pilot's wife went into labor, and they boarded his plane and flew around until she gave birth to a baby girl they named Airleen. That started a long line of rare births on airplanes. Twenty-eight years ago, Shona Kirsty Yves (note her initials) was born on a flight from the Ivory Coast to London. While she was premature, there was an obstetrician on the flight. She has done the research and has found around 50 people who were born in-flight, an exclusive group called Skyborns.

Skyborns are almost always premature, as airlines do not want to risk airborne births, but all cases so far have resulted in live births. The nationality of the child is almost always considered to be the nationality of the parents, but there are exceptions. The real confusion comes later in life, when people have to explain their place of birth for procedures like obtaining a passport. But it also comes with perks such as airline upgrades when they tell their stories. Read about the phenomenon of sky births and how it effects those who were born in the air at Conde Nast Traveler. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Bill Larkins)

This is a longer video than I would normally consider posting, but it's well worth it. Gavin Free and Dan Gruchy, the Slow-Mo Guys, have always wanted to record electricity in slow motion, but thought it might be a bit dangerous. They are no strangers to danger, at least Dan isn't. He usually gets to do the dangerous stuff. But this time, they are teaming up with Mehdi Sadaghdar from ElectroBOOM (previously), who we know isn't at all afraid of being shocked. So they set up a Tesla coil in order to record electrical arcs at 1,750,000 frames per second so we can really see what's happening. That's overkill, since we can't watch it for the many hours the film would run at regular speed. As you can guess, we'll have plenty of hijinks along the way as Medhi and Dan get their share of jolts and Gav stays safely out of the way. Their pain is our gain. -via Digg

The best-documented case of a poltergeist in Brazil began in 1973 and went on for years. A family in Guarulhos, São Paulo, Brazil, experienced mysterious vandalism they could not explain. The chaos seemed to be centered around 21-year-old Noêmia, a mother of two who lived with her husband and his parents, as well as other family members. Several times, rocks rained down on their roof. Something slashed the coverings on their furniture and mattresses. Even blankets that were folded were found to be cut. Small appliances caught fire spontaneously, even when not in use. Sometimes Noêmia or her father-in-law Pedro caught a glimpse of a dark, hairy beast with long claws that disappeared quickly. It once appeared to a neighbor who had been questioning Noêmia about the damage.

Although the family has since sought anonymity, the local paper published a story about the happenings early on. The Brazilian Institute of Psychobiophysical Research (IBPP) came and investigated. The slashings continued, and escalated to harming Noêmia, her husband Marcos, and other family members. The wounds came in several lines, as if a set of claws caused them. Noêmia's two daughters suffered from spasms and trances. The family went so far as to build a new home to stop the incidents, but that didn't help. They came to believe that someone had set a curse on the family, and that they were being targeted by umuluns, spirits called up by practitioners of the folk faith Umbanda. Read the account of the Brazilian family who battled these demons for years at Truly Adventurous. Or you can listen to the audio version.

Brian David Gilbert (previously at Neatorama) performs as the Bee Dee Gee's Hee Bee Bee Gees. Or something like that. Anyway, it's a Halloween anthem that puts a vampire into the song "Stayin' Alive" from the movie Saturday Night Fever. Music performed by Jonah Scott. If the idea of a disco vampire sounds like a horror to you, let it be known that I dressed as a disco vampire for Halloween in 1982. But BDG, or rather, the Bee Dee Gee's Hee Bee Bee Gees, also has a new Halloween song about a werewolf, set the the tune of the Bee Gees' song "Tragedy."



That's one I would have never thought of. Anyway, the AAAH!BBA stuff he referenced at the beginning of the first video is about Gilbert's project from last year, consisting of horror covers of ABBA songs. -via Laughing Squid

Claude Ambroise Seurat was a French man who was exhibited in traveling freak shows as the Living Skeleton. Born in 1797 or 1798, he appeared to be a normal baby, but as he grew, his body wasted away. As an adult, he was said to be 5' 7" tall and weighed only 78 pounds! Seurat became rather famous for his appearance, and drew scrutiny of the French medical community. It became obvious to anyone who observed Seurat over time that his skeletal body size was due to the fact that he ate very little. But why was that?

Seurat's bones had several deformities. His chest was sunken, his shoulder blades protruded from his back, and his neck was very short. These deformities could have caused him difficulty in eating, and at least one doctor noticed that he cut his food into tiny pieces, chewed it for a very long time, and swallowed small amounts. This points to a restriction or weakness in the esophagus or other parts of the digestive system, and could explain his extremely low weight. The real mystery is how he functioned in such an emaciated state. Seurat's father was offered cash for his remains should Seurat die, but he declined all offers. We don't know how long Seurat lived, or what happened to his body afterward. Read the story of France's Living Skeleton at Amusing Planet.

(Image source: Wellcome Collection)

Periodically, a photograph purported to be of Hannah Stilley Gorby comes up on the internet as the earliest-born person to be photographed. Gorby was said to have been born in 1746. We know that the world's first photograph was taken around 1826. By 1840, there were commercial photography studios in larger cities where one could have a portrait made. In 1840, Gorby would have been 94 years old. But there is no reliable documentation on Gorby's birth year, and no evidence that she lived past 1840, so this photo goes under the category of unverifiable.

However, there are many contenders for the title of the earliest-born person ever photographed, and they are all unverifiable in one way or another. In the 18th century, birth certificates weren't a thing. A person's birth date was recorded in the family Bible, or not. Records became lost or destroyed over time. People lied about their age. Continue reading for more photos of people who were born in the early 1700s (or not) who may have been the earliest-born person photographed.

The shark that crashed into a roof in Headington, UK, might have been one of the first viral images you ever saw on the internet. The Headington Shark was erected on August 9, 1986, by homeowner Bill Heine and sculptor John Buckley. The neighbors were at first shocked, then amused, and then came around to very much liking the shark. The local planning commission was not notified, and no building permit was issued. They were not amused. They didn't want to forgive the violation of its authority, and didn't want to encourage other people to do that sort of thing. Heine battled bureaucrats for years to get permission to leave the shark up. Over time, it became clear that no one else was going to cut through their roofs to make a statement, so the shark was eventually reconsidered as a unique piece of art. Tom Scott gets the whole story from Bill Heine's son and current owner of the house Magnus Hanson-Heine.