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PETER THE VAMPIRE

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

In today’s newsletter, we meet a ‘dead’ man who terrified the living, see how science is unlocking marijuana’s secrets, gawk at the world’s largest bony fish … and confirm that cats recognize your voice (but still don’t care).

A castle overlooks a foggy town

PHOTOGRAPH BY HARRY BURTON

Forget Vlad the Impaler. Without Peter Plogojowitz, there may not have been Dracula.

Legend holds that the Serbian man asked his son for food (and maybe shoes)—except that Peter was dead. And his son would be soon, as well as nine townspeople who said on their deathbeds that the “undead” Peter sucked their blood.

Horrified townspeople unearthed Peter’s body, which (supposedly) had fresh blood around the mouth, plunged a stake through his heart, and burned the body. The 1735 account sparked a vampire mania throughout Europe, fueling the market for bloodsucking tales, such as Bram Stoker’s blockbuster novel. Even if Peter is gone, the storytelling genre is energetically undead today.

Read the full story here.

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A black and white picture of actors with makeup to look like the undead.

PHOTOGRAPH BY PAOLO VERZONE

Zombies, too: While the top image is of a Romanian castle that may have been an inspiration for Dracula, storytellers branched out from vampires to werewolves and zombies. Pictured above, an infestation of zombies gleans the fields of Pennsylvania for fresh flesh in Night of the Living Dead, a 1968 film that spawned a craze for The Walking Dead and other zombie stories. Where did the notion of zombies begin? Read more.

STORIES WE'RE FOLLOWING

A portrait of a cat on a black background

PHOTOGRAPH BY JOEL SARTORE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PHOTO ARK

Cats know their owners' voices–even the tone when the humans are speaking directly to them (Pictured above, a domestic cat named Rocket)

Science seeks to unlock marijuana’s secrets

How viruses shape our world

New psychedelics are emerging—without the bad trip

Mary Shelley’s ‘contest’ created Frankenstein—and the modern horror story

How Vlad the Impaler became Dracula

This abandoned railroad was London's train for the dead

What would the world look like if all the ice melted?

THE NIGHT SKIES

An illustration of two constellations in the sky

ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREW FAZEKAS

The Halloween sky at night: Trick or treaters should know—there will be fireballs racing through the sky while they are out. Two meteor showers known as the Northern and Southern Taurids (above right) peak around Halloween night. No need for telescopes or binoculars for these shooting stars. Also, Thursday, look for the thin crescent moon pairing with the orange star Antares (above left). Not enough night skies for you? Catch our new Stargazer Atlas, just out today. — Andrew Fazekas

METEOR SHOWERS 101

PHOTO OF THE DAY

An aerial photograph of a large forest with a road winding through it

PHOTOGRAPH BY JOSHUA IRWANDI, @JOSHIRWANDI

Can you picture it? By 2045, about 945 square miles of this forest (shown above) will be developed to make way for the new capital of Indonesia. The current capital, Jakarta, is rapidly sinking and it’s unclear whether the plan to save it will succeed, Nat Geo reports. The new capital’s name? Nusantara, meaning “archipelago” in Javanese. See more stunning images on our Instagram.

LAST GLIMPSE

A giant fish carcass lies on the pavement with boats in the background

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ATLANTIC NATURALIST.ORG

A 6,049-pound whopper: Giant sunfish begin life hardly the size of a pencil eraser. But as scientists discovered when a carcass drifted near Portugal’s Azores Islands last year, the Mola alexandrini can weigh as much as a white rhino. The dead fish (pictured above) set the record for the world’s largest bony fish, beating the last behemoth by 1,000 pounds. “It’s a colossal reminder that our ocean still holds so many mysterious surprises,” says marine biologist and Nat Geo Explorer Tierney Thys.

Related: How one unlucky creature got the name “bony-eared assfish”

We hope you liked today’s newsletter. This was edited and curated by Sydney Combs, Jen Tse, Heather Kim, and David Beard. Have an idea or a link for us? Write [email protected]. Happy trails!

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