Cafe Mythology

What's your sign? In Western astrology, it's a constellation determined by when your birthday falls in the calendar. But according to the Chinese zodiac, it's your shuxiang, meaning the animal assigned to your birth year.

The myth of the bloodsucking vampire has stalked humans from ancient Mesopotamia to 18th-century Eastern Europe, but it has differed in the terrifying details. So, how did we arrive at the popular image we know, love and fear today? And what truly makes a vampire...a vampire? Michael Molina digs up the science and the superstition.

In folklore, mythology, and modern media such as literary fiction, a ghost (sometimes known as a spectre [British English] or specter [American English], phantom, apparition, spirit, spook, or haunt) is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living.

Stained glass is thicker at the bottom - so is it a liquid? Earth's mantle enables plate tectonics, so is it a liquid?

Can being cold give you a cold?

Ever wonder how the heart symbol came to stand for the actual heart? And why do we speak of the heart as the seat of love, when love really happens in our brains? Is it true that animals only get a billion heartbeats? This week, we give you enough cool cardiac science to make your heart skip a beat.

Happy Holidays! Ever wonder how Santa could possibly manage to deliver all those presents in a single night? Or what gives red-nosed reindeer the ability to fly? And why do your Christmas lights get tangled in knots no matter how carefully you put the away?!