Halloween

Thanks to Bram Stoker's Dracula "Desmodus rotundus"has been getting a bad reputation--creatures that fill gaps in our nightmares.

"Vampire Bat"

"Desmodus rotundus (vampire bat)"

The book:

"Dracula/Bram Stoker"

Other nasty blood suckers:



"Leeches"

"Leeches!"

"Background Information on the Biology of Ticks"

"Siphonaptera/Fleas"

"The Siphonaptera, or Fleas"

The above represents a scene cut from the original release of the 1931 film Frankenstein. It wasn't restored in the print for over 50 years. Boris Karloff and others at that time feared the scene of the irrational murder of the little girl Maria was just a bit too intense. So our jadedness or quest for authenticity has restored the scene.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley wrote the story and Boris Karloff in 1931 popularized it. Frankenstein is loaded with philosophy and science and there is an excellent web site on the science of Frankenstein.

"Frankenstein: Mary Shelley's Dream"


Frankenstein and bioethics is on campus at WSU

ABC Ice House

"EXPERIMENTS WITH DRY ICE"

"How does dry ice work?"

"The Web's leading source of Information about Dry Ice"

Black Widow Nebula

"Black widow nebula seen crawling through space"

"The Great Galactic Black Widow"

Ghost Head Nebula

One of a chain of star-forming regions lying south of the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud . Two bright regions (the eyes of the ghost), named A1 and A2, are very hot, glowing blobs of hydrogen and oxygen. The bubble in A1 is produced by the hot, intense radiation and powerful stellar wind from a single massive star. A2 has a more complex appearance due to the presence of more dust, and it contains several hidden, massive stars. The massive stars in A1 and A2 must have formed within the last 10,000 years since their natal gas shrouds are not yet disrupted by the powerful radiation of the newly born stars.-- David Darling/Encyclopedia of Astrobiology, Astronomy & Spaceflight

Witch's Broom Nebula

Ten thousand years ago, before the dawn of recorded human history, a new light must suddenly have appeared in the night sky and faded after a few weeks. Today we know this light was an exploding star and record the colorful expanding cloud as the Veil Nebula. Pictured above is the west end of the Veil Nebula known technically as NGC 6960 but less formally as the Witch's Broom Nebula. The rampaging gas gains its colors by impacting and exciting existing nearby gas. The supernova remnant lies about 1400 light-years away towards the constellation of Cygnus. This Witch's Broom actually spans over three times the angular size of the full Moon. The bright blue star 52 Cygnus is visible with the unaided eye from a dark location but unrelated to the ancient supernova.--NASA

Witches Broom Fungus

A nasty feature affecting many tree species.

"The Wicked Witch That Haunts And Kills Trees"

"Witches Broom"

"Spooky" science fiction...the October 30th, 1938 War of the Worlds.

The entire 1938 radio script:

"The War of the Worlds"

by

H. G. Wells

Performed by Orson Welles & the Mercury Theatre on the Air and broadcast on theColumbia Broadcasting System on Sunday, October 30, 1938 from 8:00 to 9:00 pm.

"War of the Worlds"

Some esoteric material on the 1938 radio broadcast.

"Radio's War of the Worlds Broadcast (1938)"

And, if you like, you may download the original radio broadcast.

"The War of the Worlds (October 30, 1938)"

And finally:

Script of the 1953 movie of "War of the Worlds"

The Science of Harry Potter: How Magic Really Works

by

Roger Highfield

ISBN: 0670031534

"Putting the science into the sorcery"


Seasonal Recording Favorite:

Monster Mash

Bobby "Boris" Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers

[Written by Bobby Pickett and Lenny Capizzi]

[A #1 Top 40 hit in 1962, it returned to the charts 11 years later in 1972 at #10]

I was working in the lab late one night
When my eyes beheld an eerie sight
For my monster from his slab began to rise
And suddenly to my surprise

He did the mash
He did the monster mash
The monster mash
It was a graveyard smash
He did the mash
It caught on in a flash
He did the mash
He did the monster mash

From my laboratory in the castle east
To the master bedroom where the vampires feast
The ghouls all came from their humble abodes
To get a jolt from my electrodes

They did the mash
They did the monster mash
The monster mash
It was a graveyard smash
They did the mash
It caught on in a flash
They did the mash
They did the monster mash

The zombies were having fun
The party had just begun
The guests included Wolf Man
Dracula and his son

The scene was rockin', all were digging the sounds
Igor on chains, backed by his baying hounds
The coffin-bangers were about to arrive
With their vocal group, "The Crypt-Kicker Five"

They played the mash
They played the monster mash
The monster mash
It was a graveyard smash
They played the mash
It caught on in a flash
They played the mash
They played the monster mash

Out from his coffin, Drac's voice did ring
Seems he was troubled by just one thing
He opened the lid and shook his fist
And said, "Whatever happened to my Transylvania twist?"

It's now the mash
It's now the monster mash
The monster mash
And it's a graveyard smash
It's now the mash
It's caught on in a flash
It's now the mash
It's now the monster mash

Now everything's cool, Drac's a part of the band
And my monster mash is the hit of the land
For you, the living, this mash was meant too
When you get to my door, tell them Boris sent you

Then you can mash
Then you can monster mash
The monster mash
And do my graveyard smash
Then you can mash
You'll catch on in a flash
Then you can mash
Then you can monster mash

No haunted house or graveyard is complete without "cobwebs". Actually, "cobwebs" or "spider webs" are cool; they are just a nuisance if you get covered by them. Their builders, for the most part, are harmless and the web designs are nature's art of geometry.

"Collecting Spider Webs"

"Spider Silk and Webs"

Photograph

by

Pat Nichols

Evil, lost, tormented, friendly--"ghosts". There isn't any solid physics of them...but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy them especially at Halloween.

Halloween and science:

"Halloween is for Science"

"Halloween Edition: Brew Up Some Halloween Science"

"Spooky Space 'Sounds'"

"These are the "sounds of space" collected by U Iowa instruments on various spacecraft."