I thought I’d bring a little bit of Halloween to the lab today. Our family loves Halloween; for us, it’s something we all participate in and enjoy. I will reveal our costumes from this year in a future post.
Today, I wanted to share the pumpkins our family carved into Jack-O-Lanterns.
For a nice bit of history, visit the “Why Do We Carve Pumpkins on Halloween?” page over in the Urban Legends section at About.com. Some interesting tidbits from the page include:
- – Jack O’ Lantern means “man with a lantern”, which refers to the night watchmen that would keep a lookout in the 17th century
- – Jack O’ Lantern is also a sobriquet for the strange, natural occurrence ignis fatuus (fool’s fire) or “will o’ the wisp” . (On a side note: This phenomenon has a rich history, for sure, and is the topic of many a folklore. Today most scientists agree that ignes fatui are caused by the oxidation of phosphine (PH3), diphosphane (P2H4), and methane (CH4) , which create an atmospheric light that usually transpires over bogs, swamps or marshes.)
- – People of yesteryear originally carved turnips!
Scroll farther down the page to view all of our Jack O’ Lanterns.
Happy Halloween, all of you boo-tiful people!
