The Mad Hatterpillar In 1820, Washington Irving popularized the character of the Headless Horseman, a ghost who terrorizes the countryside looking for his missing head. Though the myth reaches farther into time – Irish folklore, for example, features the Dullahan (“dark man”) who carries his head by horseback – Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hallow destined this character […]
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Spontaneous Hay Bale Combustion Many people declare autumn their favorite season. With its colorful leaves, jack-o-lanterns, pumpkin spice, costumes, and crisp weather, what’s not to love? Lurking in the background of many Halloween landscapes are seemingly innocuous rectangular prisms or cylinders. Sitting in fields along country roads, providing seats for tractor rides at pumpkin patches, outlining mazes at fall festivals,
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Vampire Squid From Hell “a very small but very terrible octopus, black as night, with ivory white jaws and blood-red eyes.” — William Beebe We refer to space as the final frontier, but, for large stretches of human history, the oceans presented a challenge beyond our comprehension. These scary bodies perplexed us in two dimensions:
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Frankenstein’s Monster Volcano Mary Shelley might not be the first name encountered when considering women in science and nature, but she led an extraordinary life and has an intriguing connection to one of the largest events in geologic history. Additionally, many literary critics dubbed one of her novels as the first science-fiction piece ever written. Her
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