There is a species of spider that craves human blood. The jumping spider Evarcha culicivora sniffs out the odors of humans and human blood as well as the blood of animals. But there are two reasons you don't need to worry about being bitten by a blood-sucking spider. The first is that the vampire spider only lives in Kenya and Uganda, around Lake Victoria. And even if you live in those countries, this spider will not bite you. They are around 5mm long, and their tiny teeth cannot pierce human skin.

So how does a vampire spider drink blood? They prey on female mosquitoes that have recently gorged themselves on blood. New research shows that the vampire spider relies more on sight and color than on the smell of blood. They are likely to feast on mosquitoes that have been fed red dye, but have no smell. And even though they eat the mosquitoes that carry malaria, they are no help in controlling the disease since they only eat mosquitoes that have already bitten someone. Read about vampire spiders at Discover magazine. -via Damn Interesting 

The international distress signal in Morse code is SOS, but it was never intended to be an acronym for anything. In fact, the three dots and three dashes was once internationally a code for S5S. The backronym "Save Our Ship" is useful when you are learning how to recognize it, so that phrase became a common explanation.   

The telegraph and Morse code were developed in the 1840s, but the system was no use for ships at sea because it required wires. But then Marconi gave us a wireless telegraph system, or "radio," first demonstrated in 1896. Suddenly, communications from ships at sea was possible, but it took some time and some left turns to work out standard international codes. The most important was a distress signal, calling any available ships for immediate aid. For some time, this code was CQD. Simon Whistler of Today I Found Out explains how that got (slowly) turned into the SOS signal that we all recognize today, despite the fact that ships no longer use Morse code. -via Laughing Squid 

Charles Oldrieve dreamed of one day walking across the English Channel—and perhaps even the Atlantic Ocean. https://t.co/lxePFj5cnV

— Smithsonian Magazine (@SmithsonianMag) October 30, 2025

The early 20th century was full of strange entertainment acts like pole sitters, escape artists, and wing walkers. Charles Oldrieve was a water walker, or an "aquatic pedestrian" if you're fancy. Oldrieve started out as a tightrope walker, but found that novelty acts drew better crowds. He fashioned large wooden shows that resembled canoes so that he could walk across lakes and rivers. He kept setting distance records for walking on water, and dreamed of walking across the English Channel. 

But the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers offered a much longer route, and in early 1907 Oldrieve set off from Cincinnati and walked on water all the way to New Orleans! His wooden shoes were specially designed to gain traction in water, and he only walked during daylight. Still, it was a grueling journey through dangerous currents. By the end, he said, "I wouldn’t walk that river again for five times the money I won.” Oldrieve supposedly began the stunt to win a $5,000 bet. Read about Oldrieve's ridiculous but spectacular journey at Smithsonian. 

When you name a product, you want that name to be simple, memorable, and pleasant. It would be nice if that name were descriptive of the product, but that can be hard in a world where there are so many products already named. It's also crucial that the product name not be something offensive in another language, but that isn't addressed in this video. Coca-Cola is an example of a perfectly-named product, because it rolls off the tongue so easily, yet it was simply named for its ingredients. 

Dr. Erica Brozovsky (previously at Neatorama) gives us some tips on using certain letters and sounds to name your product so that people feel a certain way about it. Then when you come up with the perfect name, you'll find that someone else has already trademarked it. And remember, the perfect product name won't mean anything unless it'a something people need or want. The video is only around nine minutes; the rest is promotional. 

It's not easy being queen, especially if you're a honeybee. Sure, you don't have to work and you have a staff of workers to tend to your every need, but you are in this position for one purpose- to produce hundreds or even thousands of eggs every day. The queen keeps her minions loyal by secreting a bee pheromone. 

But is a queen were to become ill, from, say, a common bee virus, that pheromone production drops, and so does her egg-laying. The workers become aware that the queen isn't upholding her end of the deal, and they can expel her from the hive! It's brutal, but probably best for the overall health of the hive in the long run. Worker bees have other queens in waiting, but until one matures enough to take over egg-laying duties, the hive is vulnerable to failure. Read how this happens, and what it means to the honey industry, at Popular Science. -via Damn Interesting 

The TV special It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown debuted in 1966. It was the third Peanuts TV special, after A Charlie Brown Christmas and the baseball-themed Charlie Brown's All Stars! I had just turned eight years old, and was a Peanuts fan, both from the comics page in the newspaper and from the earlier Christmas special. In those days, everyone at school had watched the same TV shows the night before (we only had two channels), so we spent the next day discussing the show. It gave us the catchphrases "I got a rock" and "Dog germs!" Relive those memories with a list of trivial facts about It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!.

Yes, I noticed that the video clips here borrow heavily from later Peanuts specials. The Halloween special had no Franklin, no Peppermint Patty or Marcie, and Snoopy didn't do aerobics in 1966. If you want to watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown this year, you'll have to buy a disc or pay for Apple TV+ (or check the comments). -via Laughing Squid 

Sometimes you'll see a horror film with opening credits that say "Based on a true story." By the time the film is over, you're horrified and wonder what kind of true story it was. Then there are films that say "Inspired by a true story," which could mean anything, since it implies that a story has been greatly altered. Or it could say "Based on a real account" which means little to nothing, because it could be inspired by a hoax, or a story someone else came up with.   

That being said, there are a lot of terrifying horror films that were inspired by stories that made the news somewhere at some time. A lot of slasher films drew inspiration from real murders, some you've heard of. Purely supernatural stories about haunted houses are less credible, but movies can be based on what people said happened. And wherever the story came from, they are usually changed enough to make the movie pure fiction. Read about the news stories that led to twenty of our most horrifying movies ever at Bored Panda. 

The Dodo usually brings us feel-good stories about rescued animals who find a loving home. This is different, because Halloween is right around the corner. You may want to turn the lights on before you watch this. You've been warned!

Amanda is being terrorized in her own home by a malicious entity called The Dark Lord. He watches her from a distance, or he is hidden frightfully nearby, ready to pounce without notice. He stalks her at all times. He thwarts her every purpose, from enjoying a cup of tea to baking cookies. He sits on top of the refrigerator like a gargoyle, following her with his creepy glowing eyes. You might catch those eyes from a hidden place when you least expect them. What horrible fate awaits Amanda from The Dark Lord who rules over his peasant with an iron fist, er, paw? 

If you enjoyed this eerie tale, there's plenty more like it at The Dark Lord's Instagram account. 

 

Emily Beer produces all kinds of art, including lovely embroidered works. Her series called Jaime le Cinema (I Love Movies) recreates familiar movie posters in embroidery, with some patchwork and crochet involved as well. Click to the right to see some of the finer details of The Wizard of Oz above, or Singing in the Rain below.    



Beer's taste in movies is not limited to classic musicals, though. She has stitched posters for The Shining, King Kong, Jaws, and E.T.: the Extraterrestrial, along with other movies, including French films that you might not be as familiar with. While the details are somewhat limited by the medium, the themes are well illustrated by her design decisions, like the ethereal chiffon skirt on her poster of The Seven-Year Itch, or the semi-detached lower jaw on the shark in the Jaws poster. See more of Beer's embroidered movie posters in this gallery and at Instagram. -via Messy Nessy Chic 

Dr. Emily Zarka knows a thing or two about monsters, their history, and their meaning. Sure, we know that we love scary monster stories because we get a rush out of kickstarting our emotions, even when they are supposed to be unpleasant emotions like fear. It's an adrenaline rush. But the reason they stick around is more complicated than that. Get ready for seven theses of monster theory! No, Zarka isn't going to go through all of them, but she does give us a good overview of what purpose these scary tales serve, and how those purposes differ through the rise and fall of cultural norms. They illustrate the importance of good vs. evil, and what happens when we don't stay on the good side. They warn us against danger, whether it's from real animals or people we don't know. They can be propaganda to rile up the populace against a perceived enemy. And they can help us examine what it means to be human.  

This video is only ten minutes long; the rest is promotional. -via Laughing Squid 

Caesarean sections have been around for thousands of years, but until fairly recently, they were only performed on pregnant women who had died or were very close to death, in order to give the baby a last-ditch chance. Beginning in the late 19th century, new techniques such as antiseptics, uterine sutures, and anesthetics began to make C-sections survivable. But who was the first mother to survive a caesarean section?

It has been said that Julius Caesar was born by caesarian section, hence the name. But there's no evidence of that at all, and the story may have arisen because of the name. There was a case in the early 1500s of Jacob Nufer, a Swiss veterinarian who cut his wife open after days of labor, and she survived to have more children. However, the earliest account of that case came eighty years afterward, and we don't know how true it is. A better documented account was even earlier in 1337, when Beatrice of Bourbon produced a child who would become Wenceslaus I of Bohemia, known to us as "good king Wenceslaus." We have contemporary accounts of that birth, including letters from Beatrice herself, although they are somewhat enigmatic for political reasons. Read about those early accounts of surviving a caesarian section at Amusing Planet. 

(Image credit: Wellcome Collection) 

My daughter once bought a fresh and expensive duck at the grocery while staying with me. I asked her when she was going to cook it, and she looked at me like I had two heads. She hadn't planned to cook it; she expected me to do it. I told her I didn't know how to cook a duck because I don't even like duck. She ended up freezing it and then taking it with her. I never heard about it again. 

You might expect a channel called HowToBasic to give clear and useful instructions for whatever it is they are doing. This recipe for a whole roast duck is clear, but clearly unhinged. Useful? I don't know about that. I spotted a problem as soon as a I saw them set the oven to 400°. Then instead of adjusting the temperature, they adjusted the cooking time. And I kept thinking how expensive fresh whole duck is. I guess the investment is worth it if the algorithm is good to your video. -via Boing Boing 

At its simplest, a "scarecrow" is any kind of scheme a farmer will use to shoo birds away from eating the crops. We've come to know scarecrows as an effigy of a human, made with clothing and stuffed with straw. That's the cheapest form of scarecrow, but it isn't very effective. Some birds are pretty smart, and even dumb birds will figure out in a few days that a motionless effigy won't hurt them. 

Scarecrows of this type have always been common, and tend to look creepy. We aren't built to see a motionless human shape hanging from a pole. Often, scarecrows were designed to look like a monster, as if that would be more terrifying for birds. But scaring birds wasn't always so straightforward. In different times and places, scarecrows were thought of more as a talisman or a good luck charm, urging the powers that be to protect this crop. 

So why are scarecrows associated with autumn? It may be that suburbanites and city dwellers never think of farms and crops until the harvest bounty comes in, or it may have to do with the ritual of burning a scarecrow in autumn as part of cleaning up the farm. Read everything you ever needed to know about scarecrows at Popular Science. -via Strange Company    

(Image credit: Mohsen H.Rahimi) 

Tardigrades, commonly called water bears, are microscopic animals that have a reputation for being indestructible. They are found all over the earth, and can survive extreme temperatures, extreme pressure, dehydration, and lack of air. Yet they are quite vulnerable when they are newborns. Are they born, or do they hatch? In this strange sequence, it seems like both. 

There are many species of tardigrade, and they reproduce sexually by several different methods. In the species shown here, the male deposits sperm under the female's cuticle, or outer shell. When she molts, she deposits eggs into the discarded skin, where they are fertilized. The discarded cuticle provides an extra layer of protection. When they hatch, the young water bears must find the head opening in their mother's skin, which is much harder to pierce than their own eggshells were. Yes, it's strange, but it works for them. Watch the "birthing" process in this 1000X magnification. -via Born in Space

You might have recognized a ball turret under a World War II bomber before, but if you're like me, you only found what they were all about from the Steven Spielberg story "The Mission." Ball turret gunners had one of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S. Army Air Force, more from being shot than by getting trapped. And it was quite uncomfortable. Most ball turrets were far too small to allow drawing, as in the TV show, and gunners spent their flight rolled up in a fetal position while spotting enemy fire and firing two machine guns.  

Even with functional landing gear, ball turrets landed perilously close to the ground when a mission was over. They could be retracted on the B-17 bomber, but not the B-24. See plenty of images that give you an uncomfortable feeling and sympathy for these war heroes at Vintage Everyday. -via Nag on the Lake 

(Image credit: the Imperial War Museums)