1. The “Mummified Twinkie”

Colin Purrington, of Pennsylvania, purchased a box of Twinkies and put it aside for eight years. He purchased the box in 2012 because he had heard that Hostess, the bakery company that manufactures Twinkies, was filing for bankruptcy and he wanted to have a box as a memento. Purrington thought that his box of Twinkies could sit on the shelf for an extended period and remain fresh because Twinkies are known for being reasonably non-perishable.

Recently, he was bored at home and remembered that he had purchased the golden, cream-filled treat. He decided to eat one. He immediately heaved after taking a bite and looked straight down at what he had just put into his mouth. Purrington noticed that the cake in his hand was strangely disturbing from other Twinkies he had remembered eating. Purrington told NPR News that the Twinkie he took a bite of “had a dark-colored blemish the size of a quarter.” After his recent bite of the Twinkie, he closely probed around the box to see if any other of the cakes had strange spots and dark colors. To his surprise, another Twinkie in the box had a noticeable abnormality. This rectangular cake was shriveled up like a raisin in its packaging and took on a greyish black mummified appearance.

The classic Twinkie, which has a light, airy, yellow sponge cake with a cream-filled center, is not what scientists found when the “mummified Twinkie” arrived at their lab. Two scientists, Brian Lovett and Matt Kasson took an interest in the two cakes after a photo of the Twinkies was posted on Twitter by Purrington.

Anything fungi are these scientists’ calling because they study the species for a living at West Virginia University. Studying fungi on sweet treats is not the men’s first rodeo; they conducted a similar evaluation of fungi on Peep Easter Marshmallow Bunnies.

After receiving and opening the box, both men immediately concluded that a fungus appeared to permeate the Twinkies before being packaged. The fungi did not have anywhere to escape because the cake was sealed airtight in its plastic packaging – creating a vacuum-like environment for fungi growth. After releasing the Twinkie from its packaging, Kasson and Lovett cracked open the cake with a knife used for retrieving bone marrow and noticed something peculiar. The fungi seemed to have pervaded the Twinkie’s yellow cake portion but did not penetrate the inner cream filling. The fungi, known as Cladosporium, was attributed for the Twinkie’s decay and mummy-like appearance. This spore of fungus is one of the most common but is dangerous to ingest.

The lesson learned from the case of Purrington is that you should evaluate all of your treats for fungi before eating, so you do not eat a mummified Twinkie!

Source: The “Mummified” Twinkie

2. The Trick-or-Treating Bear

On Halloween night, a Southern California resident got an unlikely surprise. Security cameras captured video of a large bear “trick-or-treating” in Monrovia, California. The tapes show the bear approaching the resident’s porch, sniffing around the Halloween decorations, and looking for food. Luckily there were no children trick-or-treating nearby. The video was posted on Twitter captioned “Costumes this year are too good!”

Source: The Trick-or-Treating Bear

3. A Robot Removes Contact Lenses!

Florida man Craig Hershoff recently invented the machine to aid people in taking out their contact lenses. Hershoff himself wears a special type of contacts called scleral lenses and says his machine helps him with dexterity. The machine is voice-activated and uses gentle suction cups to help contact wearers insert and remove their lenses easily. Hershoff hopes his robot will help people with dexterity issues. His invention is currently undergoing clinical trials for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and hopes that it will be approved as early as next year.

Source: A Robot Removes Contact Lenses!