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Lake Superior is known for its pristine waters, but a combination of nutrient additions from increasing human activity (including farming and development), warming temperatures and stormy conditions have resulted in more frequent blooms of potentially harmful algae...

Two Harvard students have created an eerie demo of how smart glasses can use facial recognition tech to instantly dox people’s identities, phone numbers, and addresses. The most unsettling part is the demo uses current, widely available technology like the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and public databases.

AnhPhu Nguyen, one of the two students, posted a video showcasing the tech in action that was then picked up by 404 Media. Dubbed I-XRAY, the tech works by using the Meta smart glasses’ ability to livestream video to Instagram. A computer program then monitors that stream and uses AI to identify faces. Those photos are then fed into public databases to find names, addresses, phone numbers, and even relatives. That information is then fed back through a phone app.

In the demo, you can see Nguyen and Caine Ardayfio, the other student behind the project, use the glasses to identify several classmates, their addresses, and names of relatives in real time. Perhaps more chilling, Nguyen and Ardayfio are also shown chatting up complete strangers on public transit, pretending as if they know them based on information gleaned from the tech...

A research group at the Finnish Museum of Natural History is investigating the adaptive potential of plant species amid a warming climate. Their recent study investigates the Siberian primrose, a plant species that occurs on the coasts of the Bothnian Bay and Arctic Ocean. Climate change is threatening the viability of the species...

The latest season of Doctor Who was very much a mixed bag, but we can all agree that the episode "73 Yards" was one of the finest installments. The episode stepped away from science fiction to tell a chilling British folk horror story.

Set in rural Wales, Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) is left alone after the Doctor vanishes. But exactly 73 yards away at all times, a mysterious lady follows her. The distant lady may not be an immediate threat, but she creepily lingers at the same distance. After folk in an inn put fear into her that she's disturbed an old fairy circle, Ruby learns that she must've let loose an ancient curse. Whoever Ruby speaks to about the lady either becomes incredibly hostile or flees in terror.

The episode was a high point for the series. It's currently the highest-rated episode of the new season on IMDb with a rating of 8.2/10. The secrets within its plot remain a mystery; even months after it premiered, fans are still trying to uncover elements of the story...

The rise of Spiritualism in the mid-19th century saw with it an increase in the popularity of seances. The belief system and its practices offered something more present and tangible than the clear fiction of the Romantic and Gothic literature of prior years, a push for supernatural belief during a period of technological and scientific innovation, and a way to contact loved ones who had been killed in the wars that enveloped much of the western world.

These otherworldly endeavors took various forms. Sometimes, these would be stage performances where a medium would communicate with spirits related to members of the audience–for those in my particular age group, this would be like Crossing Over with John Edwards. Oftentimes they would have a small group in a single dark room, and the medium leading the seance would fall into a trance that allows spirits to communicate with the other participants vocally or through methods like automatic writing; or they would guide the spirits into performing acts like rapping on the walls or ground to communicate, or levitation of objects. And then there’s the looser seances, where there is no specific medium but groups use Ouija boards and similar methods to communicate, and have become more popular since the Victorian era...

... Although it is the time for horror and there is little more horrifying than an unwanted history lesson, I will cut short this deep dive into the practice and shift over to how it is depicted on screen–a juicier topic that offers examples of many of the aspects of historic seances, as well as modernized versions of them. There’s such a variety of methods for the seance, and those are amplified and made even more compelling either due to the narrative stakes provided by these films or the style in which they’re done. I’d like to briefly explore some great examples of seances on screen–from the traditional to the modern, the fraudulent to the unguided nightmare scenarios...

Libraries are usually quiet, secluded spots. But not all are as peaceful as they may seem. These six supposedly haunted libraries are said to see more than just readers and scholars perusing their stacks of books...

• The New York Public Library // New York, New York, United States

• Senate House Library, University of London // London, England

• Marsh’s Library // Dublin, Ireland

• State Library Victoria // Melbourne, Australia

• Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University // New Haven, Connecticut, United States

• The Los Angeles Public Library // Los Angeles, California, United States

Skeletons are believed to dance beneath an old haunted Sussex oak tree once a year.

The Midsummer tree stands firm on a patch of green next to Grove Lodge roundabout in Worthing and is said to have been there for more than 300 years.

Nestled in the surrounding grass is a small plaque which signals the tree’s prominent position in local folklore.

Legend says that every year on Midsummer’s Eve, June 23, skeletons would rise from the roots of the tree and dance underneath it.

The plaque states: "This tree, believed to be over 300 years old, was once celebrated in local folklore. Every year, at Midnight on Midsummer's Eve, it was believed that skeletons would rise up from its roots and dance to the rattling of their own bones until daybreak"...

Thanks to both the low cost and high competition 0f streaming content, the lead-up to Halloween has become increasingly congested in recent years, each platform attempting to outdo the other with scares for all kinds of horror fans. This year, those looking for blood-sucking (Salem’s Lot), reality-shifting (Caddo Lake), body-swapping (It’s What’s Inside), footage-finding (V/H/S: Beyond) and dystopia-sequeling (The Platform 2) will be satiated – while this week, a more unusual horror fan is being targeted. House of Spoils, a low-budget Blumhouse offering for Amazon, is for the one who’s more affected by the fear associated with restaurant-opening, whose idea of a perfect night in involves oscillating between Food Network and Shudder...

The leaves are changing, the neighborhood decorations are getting spooky, and the air is (hopefully) getting crisper. It’s the Witching Season! And Halloween is finally upon us. Which means, more horror movies! So, with that in mind… here is your guide to seventeen brand new horror movies coming your way this Halloween season by theater, streaming, and video on demand.

• Salem’s Lot
• House of Spoils
• Hold Your Breath
• Monster Summer
• V/H/S Beyond
• The Platform 2
• Things Will Be Different
• Frankie Freako
• Spin the Bottle
• Little Bites
• Caddo Lake
• Terrifier 3
• Smile 2
• Die Alone
• Your Monster
• Don’t Move
• Rippy

Bob Clark’s “Black Christmas” (1974) is a petrifyingly scary film, easily one of the all-time most unsettling to take place during the yuletide holiday season.

While not a hit upon release (it left a very small impression), it was among the first of the Canadian Tax Shelter films made, so called because a budget was established to help create a Canadian film scene and allow budgets for films with commercial potential.

“Black Christmas” and the early works of David Cronenberg were among the Canadian Tax Shelter films; while Cronenberg eventually broke through to widespread success and acclaim, neither his earliest works nor “Black Christmas” were hits in their day.

The film that wound up super-charging the Canadian film industry was none other than Ivan Reitman’s “Meatballs” (1979).

Decades later, not only does “Black Christmas” stand out for being one of Clark’s best two Yuletide films (more on that later), but it also influenced dozens of subsequent horror films...

Hang on to your Jack-o'-lanterns, Netflix subscribers; Halloween month is here and the streaming service is serving up one of the year’s most anticipated horror sequels this Friday.

In March 2020 – yep, that memorable month – Netflix blessed its catalogue with a Spanish dystopian horror that became a regular fixture in its global ‘Top 10’ list over the following weeks – no doubt popularised in part due to its close-to-home social commentary during that difficult lockdown period for humanity. It was a bleak and disgusting yet captivating watch that combined political and social-economic allegory with human gluttony – and was not one for an empty (or for that matter, very full) stomach. Put your guess in the hat?

It was The Platform, ladies and gentlemen. The movie has a current Rotten Tomatoes score of 81 per cent, with its Critic Consensus describing it as “ an inventive and captivating dystopian thriller”. The Guardian called it a “gruesomely effective Spanish fable”, while The New York Times heralded it as “a gnarly mash-up of midnight movie and social commentary”.

On Friday, the sequel lands on Netflix to put you royally off your weekend takeaway. So what can we expect?

I’m a sucker for cosmic horror. Whether it’s the tales of H. P. Lovecraft, cinematic adaptations of his stories, or original films like The Endless and Event Horizon, I simply can’t get enough of this stuff. The idea that we’re not nearly as powerful as we like to think is utterly fascinating to me, so when I first got wind of The Veil, I knew I had to check this movie out. It promised to be a great new take on this mind-boggling subgenre, and I couldn’t wait to see what Lovecraftian thrills it had in store.

The Veil was written and directed by Cameron Beyl, and it stars Sean O’Bryan, Rebekah Kennedy, and Will Tranfo. In the film, Douglas is a retired priest who lives alone in rural Pennsylvania. He leads a fairly typical life for someone in his position, but one night, his entire world gets turned upside down. It all starts when a powerful solar storm knocks out his power and cell service, and right when his electricity goes out, the sky begins to emit a strange green light...

... The Veil is a diamond in the indie horror rough. It’s an eerie, intriguing, and heartwarming story of cosmic terror, and it’s brought to life with two excellent lead performances. It’s pretty much everything I wanted it to be, so if you’re on the prowl for something good to watch, I highly recommend that you give this movie a shot.