RenoVous

Even though it's Saturday, I had to acknowledge.  Feel free to share your Halloween pictures! We're going Black Rock camping for the night.

  In 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum.   A cloud of scorching ash buried a young man in Herculaneum.  As the ash cooled, it turned some of his brain to glass.  Above, we're looking at some of his nerve cells. Pier Pablo Petrone is a biologist and forensic anthropologist at the University of Naples Federico II in Italy.  He has found brain samples before, but says they were of a soaplike substance or were mummified. But in this case, the brain turned to glass as it was heated, liquefied and cooled.  This process is called vitrification.  Petrone and colleagues used electron microscopy to study the remains - they found layers of tissue wrapped around tendrils in the brain tissue and concluded it was myelin, a fatty substance that helps carry signals along nerve fibers. "This is the first ever discovery of ancient human brain remains vitrified by hot ash during a volcanic eruption." Science News

  The Premature Burial The story starts more as a collection of events in which the narrator is setting up the fear, and the actual occurrences, of being buried alive. He then tells us he suffers from catalepsy, and therefore has a very real fear of being found in such a state and presumed dead.  He starts staying in, close to people who know of his condition.  He has renovations done to his family tomb, just in case.  Death haunts his dreams. As he explains the way in which he "awakens" from a cataleptic fit, I can imagine how horrifying the experience must be...slow to move, slow to think and remember, slow to be aware... And then he finds that he has been buried alive, not in his tomb, but in "some common coffin."  He's finally able to get a yell out and he hears voices - suddenly he remembers the events that led to here, and he's actually been asleep in a sloop. This experience, this perceived realization of all his fears, causes a change in him though....

Autumn Halloween Party Acknowledging the spirits. Halloween Pup Cousin Cat Early Voting!

  The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar A quick read, with a creepy sense, but not really a scary story. The narrator wishes to experiment with mesmerism on a person very near death, as Valdemar is.  What he witnesses is something I can easily imagine would be horrific in viewing... He is relaying the facts of what happened due to rumors in the street, and when this story was published, it did not claim to be fiction, so many people felt that it was a true account.  Poe let that go on for a while before admitting it was pure fiction. So let's read another short one to discuss on Thursday!   The Premature Burial There's a horror, huh??

  And Miley wore Mugler for her IHeartRadio performance. Vogue

  Oncologists in the Netherlands were using PET/CT scans with prostate-specific membrane antigen ligands to track the spread of prostate cancer.  When a patient is injected with radioactive glucose, tumors are highlighted. But they ended up finding these glowing spots in all 100 people scanned and realized they had discovered an entirely new organ. They had found salivary glands, specifically mucous glands with multiple draining ducts.  It was previously believed that the only mucous glands in the nasopharynx were microscopic and spread evenly throughout the mucosa. For reference, the nasopharynx. These new glands have been dubbed "tubarial glands," and may be the cause of certain complications following radiation treatment, such as trouble swallowing (dysphagia). Now that medical professionals are aware of these glands, they can avoid damaging them with radiation therapy and lessen the side effects patients experience. IFLScience

  I figured we could start with a short story and finish off with a poem.  We'll touch base Tuesday and Thursday next week. I decided to go with The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar.  It is ranked in the top 10 of Poe's "creepiest tales," and I was intrigued by the theme being "the pseudo-science of mesmerism." Online Source Happy Spooks!!

  On this day in 1959, the Guggenheim Museum opened in New York City. It all started in 1939, when Solomon Guggenheim, with the help of Hilla Rebay, displayed his art collection in an old car showroom.  Over the next few years, his collection outgrew the space, so Rebay contacted Frank Lloyd Wright about designing a "temple of spirit." Unfortunately, Guggenheim passed away six months before the museum opened. His collection included some of the following: Vasily Kandinsky Paul Klee Marc Chagall And currently on view in NYC: Helen Frankenthaler Solomon's niece, Peggy Guggenheim, was also an art collector, and has a museum in her name in Venice, Italy. In 1943, she commissioned Jackson Pollock to paint a mural sized canvas for her new home.  It is the largest painting he ever made. In 1997, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain opened.  It was designed by Frank Gehry. History Guggenheim

  The Orionid Meteor Shower Peak morning is October 21.  The moon is in waxing crescent phase, so with clear skies, you should be able to view tonight as well. Each year the Earth passes through the stream of debris left by Comet Halley, the parent comet of the Orionids.  They're not the strongest shower, or the brightest, but they do leave persistent trains - ionized gas trails that last for a seconds after the meteor is gone. Orion ascends in the east after midnight, and though the meteors radiate from nearby, they radiate in all directions, and become visible about 30 degrees out from their radiant point, so they will be seen all over the sky.   The meteors strike our atmosphere going about 41 miles per second, vaporizing some 60 miles above Earth's surface. Enjoy your viewing! EarthSky

  Madonna Hailey Bieber...(why??) Taraji P. Henson Addison Rae Charlotte Le Bon Lizzo Ni Ni Issa Rae Irina Shayk Jennifer Lopez Vogue

  This started out as a Fungi Friday search but it turns out slime mold is no longer considered part of that kingdom, (they are now considered Protista).  Slime mold is an informal name given to several kinds of eukaryotic organisms that can live freely as single cells but can also aggregate together to form multicellular structures.  Here we see the mold appearing to breathe - it is the cellular components "shuttling" around in a process known as cytoplasmic streaming, or shuttle streaming.  This is the mold coming together to form a multicellular structure, and it is usually done when food is scarce or to reproduce. Some scientists believe the molds have a capacity to learn from experience and change their behavior, even though they don't have a brain or central nervous system.  In fact, a study in 2016 did show that they learn to avoid caffeine, and they can pass on this knowledge to new cells that fuse with the structure. The yellow is the more common "dog v...

  Since we got into some horror yesterday, I thought it would be a good time to discuss a read-along for us to share for Halloween. I have this Edgar Allan Poe book, "Complete Tales and Poems."  I've only read a few myself and it is my intention to eventually read them all.  So I wanted to see if any of you had a suggestion. It's been a while but I know I have read The Tell-Tale Heart ,  Fall of the House of Usher, and The Black Cat.   They're also the ones more known in pop culture, I think. The ones I've read more recently are The Masque of Red Death and The Murders in the Rue Morgue .  I feel like there's one I'm forgetting though.... I started watching the movie over the weekend, but didn't get it finished. So!  Let's stick with short stories and maybe we can throw a poem in at the end of the month. What say you??