In case you weren’t obsessively refreshing mentalfloss.com all week, here’s what you missed:

1. The Origins of All 30 NBA Team Names, by Scott Allen
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2. Stormtroopers On Their Day Off, by David K. Israel
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3. What Happens to the Losing Team’s Championship Shirts? by Matt Soniak
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4. 8 Things Disney Parks Have Banned, by Alvin Ward
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5. Our Readers’ Favorite Halloween Costumes, by all the readers who sent in pics
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6. The Origins of 7 Department Store Chains, by Ethan Trex
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Let’s start things off with a vintage viral video clip that never fails to bring the laughs – a Halloween Prank that either went very right or very wrong, depending on who you are in the video!
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Just in time for All Hallows Eve, Sarah brings us this find: 10 films that even scare Wes Craven.
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To continue on with further spooky happenings, check out some of these truly scary Scarecrows (ok, some are just silly).
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Sure, there are plenty of really cute baby costumes out there, but there are also quite a few inappropriate things to dress your baby in (like a baby pimp? Or baby MJ?) See for yourself!
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Ok, here’s the last Halloween link for ya – the 15 Funniest Knockoff Halloween Costumes. I love the “veiled” name of “8 is too much” and also “Immortal Male Colonial.”
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Just when you thought Bento couldn’t get any cooler … here are some examples featuring comic book characters that blow all the others out of the water.
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Ladies and Gentlemen, may I introduce you to the greatest invention on Earth: the Playable Electric Guitar Shirt.
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From Kimberly, “Jeffrey Thomas made some creepy artwork featuring Disney princesses that he titled ‘Twisted Princess‘. Pretty creepy pictures! Our childhood would be different if we grew up with these ladies!” Some are fierce but others are certifiably spooky!
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Just in time for Halloween, here are a few behind-the-scenes tidbits about some famous masks (of both the scary and not-so-spooky variety).

1. Leatherface

Portions of the classic horror film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were based on the crimes of serial killer Ed Gein, but the trademark Leatherface mask was inspired by a far more personal (and equally grisly) experience. Writer/director Tobe Hooper had a doctor friend who’d once confided to him that, while a pre-med student, he’d sneaked into the morgue and harvested the skin from the face of a cadaver to make a Halloween mask. Bob Burns, the movie’s art director, took several of Leatherface’s props home with him after filming wrapped, including one of the three original “killing” masks, which he mounted on a Styrofoam head and sprayed with a transparent sealant. He kept the head in a shoebox in his closet for many years before selling it to a friend, who then auctioned it on eBay for an undisclosed sum. The successful bidder was a horror film fanatic who now proudly displays the mask in his home in a specially built air-tight case.

2. Guy Fawkes

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Ever wondered what M&M’s stands for? Or how the Dum-Dum “Mystery Flavor” is created? Read on for some fun facts about a few Halloween staples.

1. Candy corn has been around since the late 1800s. At that time, there was no air conditioning, and even electric fans were a rare luxury. Beginning in March each year, men worked over steaming kettles slurring together sugar, water and corn syrup. Butter crème was added for texture, and marshmallow to give the candy a softer bite. Men carrying 45 lb. buckets of the hot mixture would then walk slowly backwards, pouring the candy into the kernel-shaped molds. Three passes were necessary, one for each color. Six days per week, 10 hours per day, for a weekly salary of just over $5.
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2. At the Spangler Candy Company factory, as the run of one Dum-Dum flavor is close to completion in the factory, a second flavor is set up for the next run. Rather than shut down to clean out the flavor vats and equipment, Spangler made “Mystery Flavor” pops out of the combination of flavors—the tail end of the old, and the beginning of the new.
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3. M&M’s actually stands for “Mars & Murrie’s,” the last names of the candy’s founders, Forrest Mars Sr. & William F. R. Murrie. (Now you know.)
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Two weeks ago I wrote about The Story of Pi, a semi-educational retro video that visually explains Pi. One commenter (lynn) pointed out a song I hadn’t heard before, The Pi Song by Antoni Chan and Ken Ferrier. I present it below for your weekend edutainment. Set to the tune of the classic Don McLean song “American Pie,” this is kind of a hoot. (NOTE: the video below is just the first part; for the whole thing check out this video.)

Complete lyrics after the jump.

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Halloween is almost here. Just remember, scaring people can be a dangerous business.

Nice right cross. (more…)

Earlier this week, friend of the _floss Maggie Koerth-Baker posted a round-up of nuclear accidents in the U.S. & Russia. Today’s follow-up took things in another direction:

“Researching the history of criticality accidents made me wonder how accidental exposure to massive levels of radiation became the de rigueur method of achieving superhero-dom. And, while I suppose comic book writers would have a well-formed opinion or two on this, I decided to ask a group of people whose point of view I’d never seen–actual nuclear scientists.“

To find out the scientists’ perspective on superhero origins, head over to BoingBoing to read the story.

Singer and dancer Josephine Baker was probably the closest thing the Jazz Age had to a Britney Spears-type character. The African American diva, who was known as “La Baker” in her adopted France, was a worldwide celebrity and devoted civil rights activist who first rose to fame by dancing in a “skirt” of artificial bananas and very little else. (Have a look at the dance for yourself.) While Baker’s activism and military service were commendable, they often took a back seat in the contemporary media to her bizarre personal life. Let’s take a look at five things you might not have known about Josephine Baker:

1. She Was a Spy

When World War II rocked her adopted France, Baker didn’t simply move to a more peaceful country. Instead, she stuck around and did her part for the war effort. Since she had initially publicly supported Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia, the Axis powers mistakenly thought she was “one of them,” and Baker took full advantage of this misconception.

In fact, her fame made her the perfect spy. When Baker would travel Europe while touring, she obviously had to carry large quantities of sheet music with her. What customs officials never realized, though, was that a lot of this music actually had secret messages written on it in invisible ink. Fawning immigration officials never thought to take too close a look at the diva’s luggage, so she could sneak all sorts of things in and out of countries. On some occasions, Baker would smuggle secret photos of German military installations out of enemy territory by pinning them to her underwear.
This invaluable intelligence work eventually helped Baker rise to the rank of lieutenant in the Free French Air Force, and when the war was over she received both the Croix de Guerre (a first for an American woman) and the Medal of the Resistance in 1946.

2. She Was Worth Dueling Over

Lots of stars have devoted fans, but how many would be willing to fight a duel for their favorite diva? (more…)

What is dry ice and how does it make that awesome fog?

Dry ice is the colorless, odorless, solid form of carbon dioxide, first reported in 1834 by the French chemist Charles Thilorier, who opened a container of liquid carbon dioxide needed for an experiment and observed that most of the liquid CO₂ quickly evaporated, leaving a solid form on the bottom of the canister.

The surface temperature of dry ice is −109.3 °F. As it warms up, it sublimes, or transitions from the solid to gas form with no intermediate liquid form (a process called sublimation). These two characteristics make it an excellent coolant and since 1925, when solid CO₂ was trademarked and sold as “Dry ice” by the DryIce Corporation of America, it’s been used to flash freeze and refrigerate food and biological samples, make ice cream, bait mosquito traps (they’re attracted to CO₂) and make fog for theater productions, Sunn O))) concerts and haunted houses.

That fog is made by quickly changing the CO₂ into its gas form. In an ice chest, dry ice sublimes at an average rate of 5-10 pounds every 24 hours. But placing dry ice in hot water accelerates sublimation considerably and turns the solid CO₂ into CO₂ gas. The cold CO₂ gas meets the surrounding air and drops its temperature enough for condensation to occur and tiny droplets of water to form in the air and, voila, you have fog. Because carbon dioxide is heavier than air, and cold air is denser than warm air, the fog stays low to the ground for that extra creepy effect.

Why do we get goosebumps?

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