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When it was built, the Titanic was the largest moving human-made object in the world. It had many new features, including remotely sealable compartments that led to it being deemed "unsinkable." Alas, it was not.

About the ship

The RMS Titanic was built by the White Star line, which was a competitor to another shipbuilding company, Cunard. In 1907, Cunard made major waves by building the Lusitania and the Mauretania, which set speed records crossing the Atlantic. To compete, White Star Line decided to build several large vessels known for their comfort instead of their speed, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica: the Olympic, the Titanic and the Britannic.

The Titanic was completed in 1912 at a cost of $7.5 million in Belfast, Ireland (although nowadays it's Northern Ireland). It took more than two years to build, and two workers died during its construction. The ship was 882 feet (270 meters) long, or more than four city blocks, and more than 92 feet (28 m)high. It weighed an incredible 46,000 tons. [ Titanic Quiz: Fact or Fiction]

The Titanic began its journey in Southampton, England, and then sailed to Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown, Ireland (now known as Cobh). It sped west toward New York on April 10. It was carrying a total of 1,316 passengers and 885 crew members, according to the Encyclopedia Titanica. The people were a mixture of wealthy individuals as well as immigrants from Ireland, Germany and elsewhere.

On April 14, a nearby ship, the Californian, sent a message at 10:55 p.m.: "Ice report: We are stopped and surrounded by ice." But the captain of the Titanic, Edward Smith, and First Officer William Murdoch did not heed these warnings, steaming ahead near full-speed.

The known route of the Titanic and a possible route of the iceberg.

Credit: Texas State University

Sinking of the Titanic

At 11:40 p.m. ship's time, watchmen aboard the ship spotted an iceberg, and the ship made a sudden turn to the left, causing it to sideswipe the iceberg. The ice punched holes in the starboard (or right side) of the boat, along a nearly 300-foot (90 m) stretch and it began filling it with water. Six of the ship's 16 water-tight compartments started filling. But this was enough to make the ship begin to sink into the water, at which point the water flowed of the top of these compartments (the "transverse bulkheads") and begin filling the other compartments. Modern estimates suggest that the boat could have possibly limped to shore with only four breached compartments. [ Video: How Exactly Did Titanic Sink? - With James Cameron ]

With six compartments leaking, however, the Titanic's fate was sealed - it had lost too much buoyancy to remain afloat, and the fact that it was a well-built and durable ship at this point made little difference. That said, the ship didn't sink for almost three hours, longer than Titanic's engineer gave it - when he heard that six compartments were leaking, he predicted it would only stay afloat for 1 to 1.5 hours, said Titanic expert Parks Stephenson. Contrary to some studies that say the Titanic had weak rivets, it was actually quite strong for its time, Stephenson said.

As the front filled with water and sunk into the ocean, the back of the ship lifted out of the water, according to analysis by James Cameron and eyewitness accounts. This placed tremendous pressure on the middle of the boat. It eventually cracked and the front of the ship crashed back into the ocean; the ship sank at 2:20 a.m. on April 15.

Why did the Titanic sink?

Many have speculated as to what led the Titanic to hit the iceberg. Stephenson said there was likely at the time an atmospheric effect called a "cold air mirage," which is relatively common in the North Atlantic, and helped prevent the crew from seeing the iceberg until too late. This effect may have also prevented nearby ships from seeing the Titanic's warning flares, or from discerning that they were signals of distress.

A ship called the Californian was nearby, likely within less than 20 miles (37 kilometers) of the Titanic, and was singled out for scrutiny for not responding to the Titanic's distress signals. But the ship had retired for the night, and its wireless system was turned off. The captain of the ship claimed that the flares his officers saw weren't thought to be distress signals. But it's unclear exactly why the Californian didn't respond and continues to be a matter of some debate, Stephenson said.

The Titanic carried only 16 lifeboats as well as four "collapsibles," which in total could only accommodate a third the Titanic's total passengers had the ship been fully filled. As it was, it could have only accommodated half the passengers aboard. While this may seem unforgiveable by today's standards, the Titanic actually carried more lifeboats than necessary under the law at the time. In the aftermath of the sinking, laws were put in place to prevent this from happening again and required ships to carry more lifeboats.

[ Infographic: Why and How the Titanic Sank]

Titanic passengers and survivors

All of the Titanic's survivors were rescued by the Carpathia, which received the Titanic's distress signal and immediately set off toward the Titanic. It didn't get there until about 4 a.m., however.

Of the 2,224 people on board, 1,514 lost their lives, while 710 survived. First-class passengers fared much better than those in third class. For example, only 3 percent of first-class women died, whereas 54 percent of third class women perished.

Some of the Titanic's passengers were prominent people, including John Jacob Astor IV, one of the wealthiest men in the world at that time. So were Ida and Isidor Straus, who was the co-owner of Macy's department store. And of course, there was "Unsinkable" Molly Brown, a socialite who became famous when she exhorted her lifeboat to return to look for survivors, and ultimately survived the ordeal herself.

Astor didn't survive, as he didn't take seriously the reports that the ship was sinking, and later wasn't allowed onto a lifeboat due to a " women and children first" policy. (His pregnant wife did survive, however.) Ida Straus initially boarded a lifeboat but returned to her husband. "Where you go, I go," she reportedly said. The couple would die together. (He was 67, she was 63.)

The wreck of the Titanic was discovered by Bob Ballard on Sept. 1, 1985. He used his underwater craft called Argo to follow a trail of debris to the ship's hull.

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The Titanic: Facts About the 'Unsinkable' Ship

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When it was built, the Titanic was the largest moving human-made object in the world. It had many new features, including remotely sealable compartments that led to it being deemed "unsinkable." Alas, it was not. About the ship The RMS Titanic was built by the White Star line, which was a competitor to another shipbuilding company, Cunard.

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Halloween is the season for little ghosts and goblins to take to the streets, asking for candy and scaring one another silly. Spooky stories are told around fires, scary movies appear in theaters and pumpkins are expertly (and not-so-expertly) carved into jack-o'-lanterns.

Recently, creepy clowns seem to be doing some real terrorizing: In August of 2016, locals in Greenville, South Carolina, reported a clown who was allegedly trying to lure children into the woods; then in September, a teen reported a knife-wielding clown in Summitville, Tennessee. Local and state officials in many areas urged people to report suspicious clown sightings. And in South Florida, some stores pulled clown costumes from their shelves and Broward County police advised people not to dress up as the masked grinners, according to the Miami Herald.

In 2017, the clowning continued. A movie based on the classic Steven King story "It" was remade and released in the United States on Sept. 8. In the movie, a demon that takes the form of a clown lures children into the sewer with a red balloon. In Lititz, Pennsylvania, police responded to reports of over 20 red balloons tied to sewer grates, according to CBS News. People dressing as clowns remains a popular way to scare. Children in North Dakota, for example, were targeted in May by a knife-wielding clown with a boa constrictor and in September, Australia saw an increase of clown sightings before Halloween.

Amid the silly and scary antics, Halloween is much more than just costumes and candy; in fact, the holiday has a rich and interesting history.

Halloween, also known as All Hallows' Eve, can be traced back about 2,000 years to a pre-Christian Celtic festival held around Nov. 1 called Samhain (pronounced "sah-win"), which means "summer's end" in Gaelic, according to the Indo-European Etymological Dictionaries. [ 13 Halloween Superstitions & Traditions Explained]

Because ancient records are sparse and fragmentary, the exact nature of Samhain is not fully understood, but it was an annual communal meeting at the end of the harvest year, a time to gather resources for the winter months and bring animals back from the pastures. Samhain is also thought to have been a time of communing with the dead, according to folklorist John Santino.

"There was a belief that it was a day when spirits of the dead would cross over into the other world," Santino told Live Science. Such moments of transition in the year have always been thought to be special and supernatural, he added.

Halloween provides a safe way to play with the concept of death, Santino said. People dress up as the living dead, and fake gravestones adorn front lawns - activities that wouldn't be tolerated at other times of the year, he said.

But according to Nicholas Rogers, a history professor at York University in Toronto and author of " Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night" (Oxford University Press, 2003), "there is no hard evidence that Samhain was specifically devoted to the dead or to ancestor worship.

"According to the ancient sagas, Samhain was the time when tribal peoples paid tribute to their conquerors and when the sidh [ancient mounds] might reveal the magnificent palaces of the gods of the underworld," Rogers wrote. Samhain was less about death or evil than about the changing of seasons and preparing for the dormancy (and rebirth) of nature as summer turned to winter, he said.

Though a direct connection between Halloween and Samhain has never been proven, many scholars believe that because All Saints' Day (or All Hallows' Mass, celebrated on Nov. 1) and Samhain, are so close together on the calendar that they influenced each other and later combined into the celebration now called Halloween.

The tradition of dressing in costumes and trick-or-treating may go back to the practice of "mumming" and "guising," in which people would disguise themselves and go door-to-door, asking for food, Santino said. Early costumes were usually disguises, often woven out of straw, he said, and sometimes people wore costumes to perform in plays or skits.

The practice may also be related to the medieval custom of "souling" in Britain and Ireland, when poor people would knock on doors on Hallowmas (Nov. 1), asking for food in exchange for prayers for the dead.

Trick-or-treating didn't start in the United States until World War II, but American kids were known to go out on Thanksgiving and ask for food - a practice known as Thanksgiving begging, Santino said.

"Mass solicitation rituals are pretty common, and are usually associated with winter holidays," Santino said. While one tradition didn't necessarily cause the others, they were "similar and parallel," he said.

These days, the "trick" part of the phrase "trick or treat" is mostly an empty threat, but pranks have long been a part of the holiday.

By the late 1800s, the tradition of playing tricks on Halloween was well established. In the United States and Canada, the pranks included tipping over outhouses, opening farmers' gates and egging houses. But by the 1920s and '30s, the celebrations more closely resembled an unruly block party, and the acts of vandalism got more serious.

Some people believe that because pranking was starting to get dangerous and out of hand, parents and town leaders began to encourage dressing up and trick-or-treating as a safe alternative to doing pranks, Santino said.

However, Halloween was as much a time for festivities and games as it was for playing tricks or asking for treats. Apples are associated with Halloween, both as a treat and in the game of bobbing for apples, a game that since the colonial era in America was used for fortune-telling. Legend has it that the first person to pluck an apple from the water-filled bucket without using his or her hands would be the first to marry, according to the book " Halloween and Commemorations of the Dead" (Chelsea House, 2009) by Roseanne Montillo.

Apples were also part of another form of marriage prophecy. According to legend, on Halloween (sometimes at the stroke of midnight), young women would peel an apple into one continuous strip and throw it over her shoulder. The apple skin would supposedly land in the shape of the first letter of her future husband's name.

Another Halloween ritual involved looking in a mirror at midnight by candlelight, for a future husband's face was said to appear. (A scary variation of this later became the "Bloody Mary" ritual familiar to many schoolgirls.) Like many such childhood games, it was likely done in fun, though at least some people took it seriously. [ Why Do We Carve Pumpkins at Halloween?]

Some evangelical Christians have expressed concern that Halloween is somehow satanic because of its roots in pagan ritual. However, ancient Celts did not worship anything resembling the Christian devil and had no concept of it. In fact, the Samhain festival had long since vanished by the time the Catholic Church began persecuting witches in its search for satanic cabals. And, of course, black cats do not need to have any association with witchcraft to be considered evil - simply crossing their path is considered bad luck any time of year.

As for modern Halloween, Santino, writing in " American Folklore: An Encyclopedia" (Garland, 1996), noted that "Halloween beliefs and customs were brought to North America with the earliest Irish immigrants, then by the great waves of Irish immigrants fleeing the famines of the first half of the nineteenth century. Known in the North American continent since colonial days, by the middle of the twentieth century Halloween had become largely a children's holiday." Since that time, the holiday's popularity increased dramatically as adults, communities and institutions (such as schools, campuses and commercial haunted houses) have embraced the event.

Through the ages, various supernatural entities - including fairies and witches - came to be associated with Halloween, and more than a century ago in Ireland, the event was said to be a time when spirits of the dead could return to their old haunting grounds. Dressing up as ghosts or witches became fashionable, though as the holiday became more widespread and more commercialized (and with the arrival of mass-manufactured costumes), the selection of disguises for kids and adults greatly expanded beyond monsters to include everything from superheroes to princesses to politicians.

This article was originally published in 2014 and has been updated by Alina Bradford, Tanya Lewis and Jeanna Bryner.

Additional resources

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Halloween is the season for little ghosts and goblins to take to the streets, asking for candy and scaring one another silly. Spooky stories are told around fires, scary movies appear in theaters and pumpkins are expertly (and not-so-expertly) carved into jack-o'-lanterns.

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It's a beautiful summer day. You and your dog are walking near a patch of grass when she stops dead, then sniffs ... and sniffs ... and sniffs. Gently, you tug on the leash, but-muzzle buried in the turf-she braces herself and continues her nosework.

Scent is extremely important to dogs, much more so than to humans. All dogs have smart noses. In fact, MRI studies show that when a dog recognizes the smell of a familiar human, the caudate nucleus in her brain lights up, signaling a happy event.

For the average dog, a small pile of foliage contains a world of information. Though the canine brain is about one-tenth the size of a human brain, its smell center is 40 times larger. We have roughly 5 to 6 million scent receptors, a fraction of the 125 to 300 million available to our canine companions.

Dog's moist noses are cute, but there's function behind that soft form. The mucus on a dog's nose helps capture scent particles; when a dog's nose is dry, she may lick it to improve reception. Dogs can also wiggle their nostrils independently, thereby detecting the direction of odors. Some, like the Bloodhound, use their ears to direct even more potential scent particles up to their noses.

Despite the fact that the olfactory system is an ancient neurological pathway, we still do not completely understand how it works, either in ourselves or in our dogs. New studies are under way, however; in September 2015, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded three interdisciplinary teams of scientists $15 million to "crack the olfactory code" as part of President Obama's BRAIN initiative. As the NSF web page notes, "Olfaction is critical for the survival of species across the animal kingdom. Yet how the brain processes and identifies odors-and how this information influences behavior- remains, largely, an enigma."

Though we may not understand it, most of us are aware that scent can influence behavior. In the realm of human holistic treatments, the use of essential oils and herbal fragrances has become increasingly trendy, and yoga teachers will sometimes use aromatic oils during classes.

Exposure to certain herbal or spice scents has been shown to have positive effects on humans. For example, Mark Moss and Lorraine Oliver, working at the Brain Performance and Nutrition Research Centre at Northumbria University in the UK, designed an experiment to investigate the pharmacology of 1,8-cineole, one of the main components of rosemary.

After exposing 20 human subjects to varying levels of 1,8-cineole, the investigators tested their cognitive performance. Speed and accuracy test results showed that the concentration of 1,8-cineole in the blood was related to an individual's cognitive performance: higher concentrations resulted in increased speed and accuracy. If scent can have positive effects on olfactorychallenged humans, it might be expected to have an even more pronounced effect on dogs.

While research on canines is limited, a study done at the University of Belfast explored the influence of four types of olfactory stimulation (lavender, chamomile, rosemary and peppermint) on the behavior of 55 dogs housed in a rescue shelter. The control condition used no odors other than those arising naturally from the dogs' environment (e.g., odors from disinfectants and other animals). Using diffusions of essential oils and allowing two days between stimulants, the dogs were exposed to the scents four hours a day for five days.

According to the study, dogs exposed to lavender and chamomile spent more time resting and less time moving than with other olfactory stimuli used in the experiment. These odorants also were found to reduce barking and vocalization in caged animals. On the other hand, fragrances such as rosemary and peppermint were found to encourage significantly more standing, moving and vocalizing.

Shelters are safe but sterile environments, and, recognizing that as an issue, some have looked for ways to enrich those environments for their animals; an increasing number are introducing scent. For example, on its web page, the Humane Society of Miami describes its scent enrichment program, which incorporates essential oils such as lavender, Valor (a blend) and vanilla as well as herbs and spices.

McKamey Animal Center located in Chattanooga, Tenn., is among the few that have been working with scent enrichment for several years, according to Morag Greaney, the center's adoption and foster supervisor. "I've been working there since last August, and they started long before then," she says. Greaney, who hails from Scotland, was a high school teacher and then worked in canine rescue for nine years before coming to McKamey.

According to Greaney, the scents- which include lavender, peppermint, vanilla and cinnamon-are changed every day. The essential oil is mixed with water, then sprayed on the ground outside each dog's kennel using nonaerosol methods. While there isn't an immediate reaction, staff observe that the animals tend to be calmer and more settled the following day. Greaney believes that it is not just a particular scent that makes a difference (although she does find that lavender has a calming effect), but the variety that helps stimulate the dogs' brains.

The center, which handles upwards of 200 animals, hosts a number of different breeds-Huskies, Labradors, American Staffordshire Terriers and Shepherds among them. While the center hasn't conducted any formal studies to determine if different breeds are affected differently by the scents, its behavior-assessment team uses lavender to help relax new animals prior to evaluation. Scented dog toys are also used.

Scent enrichment can work at home as well. Greaney remarked that she has used scents with her own dog for more than six years. Rather than using a spray, she says, she rubs her hands with an oil such as eucalyptus, lemon, lavender or geranium and then massages it into her dog's coat. She says that her German Shepherd, who she describes as "high strung," is better behaved as a result.

"I would absolutely recommend that dog owners use scents with their animals," she concluded. However, she cautioned, people should first do some preliminary research and check with their veterinarian to avoid any possible detrimental effects.

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The Way To Dogs' Brain Is Through Their Noses

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It's a beautiful summer day. You and your dog are walking near a patch of grass when she stops dead, then sniffs ... and sniffs ... and sniffs. Gently, you tug on the leash, but-muzzle buried in the turf-she braces herself and continues her nosework.

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Excerpted from Stuff by Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee. Copyright © 2010 by Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing. All rights reserved.
This excerpt is a sample from DISCOVER's special Brain issue, available only on newsstands through June 28.
We could have found the apartment just by following the powerful musty odor that hit us as we stepped out of the elevator. When we got to the door, my guide knocked. No answer. She knocked again, then a third time. Finally, a small voice inside said, "Who's there?"

"It's Susan, the social worker. We're here with the cleaning crew. They're here to clean out your apartment."

"Daniel's not here," the voice behind the door told us. "He went to get us breakfast."

"That's OK. He doesn't have to be here."

She opened the door a crack, and the door frame moved, almost imperceptibly. Yet it didn't really move. The world seemed to shift, and I felt off balance for a moment. The door opened a bit wider, and then I saw them: cockroaches, thousands of them, scurrying along the top of the door to get out of the way.

The door opened the rest of the way. The apartment was dark, and it took a moment to appreciate what was inside. No floor was visible, only a layer of dirty papers, food wrappers, and urine-stained rags. A rottweiler bolted out of the back to see what was going on. He jumped over a pile of dirty clothes-at least they looked like clothes. From the edge of the door, the massive pile of junk rose precipitously to the ceiling, like a giant sea wave. It could have been part of a landfill: papers, boxes, shopping carts, paper bags, dirty clothing, lamps-anything that could be easily collected from the street or fished out of a Dumpster. It was one solid wall of trash 20 feet deep, all the way to the back of the apartment. There must have been windows on the far wall, but they were darkened by the broken fans, boxes, and clothing covering them.

Inside the condo the sweet, pungent odor of insects and rotting food enveloped us. Susan had instructed me to wear old clothes that I could throw out afterward. I was grateful for the advice but wished I'd also had a face mask-the heavy-duty kind.

I could feel the cockroaches surrounding me as I stepped in. The walls were coated with their brown dung, and occasionally one dropped from the ceiling onto the piles of debris below. I walked farther in to get a better look at the kitchen, or what I thought was the kitchen. It was impossible to tell, since everything was covered with bags. Food, mostly old and rotting, empty but unwashed tuna cans, and colorful coupons adorned the room. There was a path into the kitchen, though it was atop six inches of trash on the floor.

I was afraid to touch anything. I suddenly felt a great deal of sympathy for all the people I'd met with contamination phobias: This must be what it feels like, I thought.

Susan, the court-appointed guardian of Edith, who had struggled to open the door for us, had obtained a judge's order for a "heavy-duty cleaning" because she believed that Edith's health and safety were in danger, and no more moderate measure had succeeded in improving the horrific living conditions in the condo. Edith wasn't responsible for these conditions. It was all her brother Daniel's doing. And Daniel didn't see anything wrong with the place. "All of this stuff we can use," he insisted. "There is nothing wrong with our home."

What brain circuitry may be involved in the development of hoarding? Researchers at the University of Iowa compared brain-damaged patients who began abnormally collecting things following their injuries to brain-damaged patients who did not collect. All of the abnormal collectors had damage in the middle of the front portion of the frontal lobes, while the noncollecting patients' damage was scattered throughout the brain. The prefrontal region of the brain is responsible for goal-directed behavior, planning, organization, and decision making-all activities that represent challenges for people who hoard.

Brain scan studies provide additional information. Sanjaya Saxena, director of the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders Program at the University of California at San Diego, found lower metabolism (an indication of the level of activity in that portion of the brain) among hoarders in regions of the brain roughly corresponding to those identified in the University of Iowa study. In particular, hoarders had lower metabolic rates in the anterior cingulate cortex, one region responsible for motivation, focused attention, error detection, and decision making.

Saxena's study examined people's brains while they were at rest, or at least not engaged in a task. Subsequent research has examined what is happening in the brain when hoarders try to make decisions about discarding possessions. Our colleague Dave Tolin at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut, devised one such ingenious experiment. Hoarding patients and a control group who didn't hoard brought their junk mail to the lab. Their brains were scanned while they watched a monitor showing the experimenter picking up their mail and holding it over a shredder. The subjects were then asked to decide whether the experimenter should shred or save the item. In contrast to what happened when their brains were at rest, hoarders had significantly more activity in areas such as the anterior cingulate cortex than control subjects did when trying to make the decision.

At this point, geneticists are betting that hoarding has at least some significant genetic cause, but exactly what is inherited is not clear. One possibility is that hoarders inherit deficits or different ways of processing information. Perhaps they inherit an intense perceptual sensitivity to visual details. These visual details (overlooked by the rest of us) give objects special meaning and value to them.

Or perhaps they inherit a tendency for the brain to store and retrieve memories differently. If visual cues (i.e., objects) are necessary for hoarders' retrieval of memories, then getting rid of those cues is the same as losing their memories. Whatever is inherited, it is likely that some kind of emotional vulnerability must accompany this tendency in order for full-blown hoarding to develop.

Most people who hoard save things that don't decay and aren't particularly dirty, such as newspapers or clothes. In our study of hoarding in the elderly, we found that less than a third of the cases lived in squalid conditions. In younger samples, the proportion is even lower. But some people, like Daniel, collect dirty and rotting stuff that invites insects and rodents.

Daniel arrived about 30 minutes after the cleaning crew started working. He was 50, with a medium build and lots of energy. He complained about the crew's starting without him and insisted that it was his job to direct the cleaning. Susan intervened.

She told Daniel that the place was unlivable and asked how it had gotten that way. Daniel appeared offended, but he also seemed to enjoy the prospect of an argument. He objected to her depiction of the apartment as unlivable and suggested that she didn't understand the riches he had acquired. He was lucid and could not be considered out of touch with reality. Yet he seemed unable to tell us why he had collected all this stuff. When I asked where it came from, he insisted that his sisters had pressured him into collecting cans and bottles for the refunds and old packs of cigarettes for the coupons they contained. But very few bottles, cans, or cigarette packs were visible in the tidal wave of trash in the apartment.

From the edge of the door, the massive pile of junk rose precipitously to the ceiling, like a giant sea wave.

Daniel spent most of the day insisting that there was nothing wrong with him, but for one short period he admitted that his collecting had become a problem. He talked about how he had tried to stop collecting, and how his family had tried to help him stop by telling him what he could bring home and in what quantity. Then, as quickly as his insight came, it was gone, and he was back to arguing with us about the unfairness of it all and about the incompetence of social workers.

We left at the end of the afternoon with the cleaning crew. Within a month, the apartment was full again. Daniel's behavior did not change. He insisted that others misunderstood him and were misguided.

For those lacking insight into their hoarding, heavy-duty cleanings are seldom more than a short-term fix. The condition of the home may change temporarily, but the collecting behavior does not. Perhaps it would be impossible to get Daniel to stop collecting, but getting him to organize or store his hoard in a different manner might reduce the risk to Edith and the rest of his family.

In such cases, we encourage social services agencies, such as the one Susan worked for, to take a different approach. Instead of clearing out the home, we recommend working with the hoarder to determine what needs to be done to meet and sustain basic standards of safety. The effort requires the development of a personal and trusting relationship with ongoing contact. Though potentially costly, it may in the long run result in public savings by reducing the number of heavy-duty cleanings.
Excerpted from Stuff by Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee. Copyright © 2010 by Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing. All rights reserved. This excerpt is a sample from DISCOVER's special Brain issue, available only on newsstands through June 28.

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What Quirk of the Brain Turns People Into Compulsive Hoarders?

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Excerpted from Stuff by Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee. Copyright © 2010 by Randy O. Frost and Gail Steketee. Re­printed by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing. All rights reserved. This excerpt is a sample from DISCOVER's special Brain issue, available only on newsstands through June 28.

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Mark Fletcher taps the two tiny, chipped toy cars on the velvet cloth in front of him: a gold '68 Mustang and an orange-metallic '68 Cougar. "These are my childhood cars," he says.

Fletcher lets us pick up one of his cars. It's familiar-warm and worn and with a satisfying heft-and a rush of nostalgia ensues. Many Americans who grew up loving cars had cases filled with these as boys. But it's one of the only times we will hold one here.

This same nostalgia has fueled the remarkable escalation in the toys' collectibility. Thousands of adult fans now attend local and national collector conventions. Hot Wheels are consistently the most populous eBay category, with an average of 25,000 vehicles up for auction at any time. And sites such as diecastspace.com, redlinesonline.com, and Mattel's own hotwheelscollectors.com allow legions of collectors to exchange information and millions of dollars' worth of  little cars.

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Mark Fletcher taps the two tiny, chipped toy cars on the velvet cloth in front of him: a gold '68 Mustang and an orange-metallic '68 Cougar. "These are my childhood cars," he says. Fletcher lets us pick up one of his cars. It's familiar-warm and worn and with a satisfying heft-and a rush of nostalgia ensues.

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GRAND JUNCTION- In less than two hours, Sandra Gutierrez will be at the front of a church wearing a glittering tiara and a ball gown befitting a princess.

For now, on this most important day in her young life, she is slumped at a kitchen counter in her parents' home dealing with a painful, bloodshot eye from the unfamiliar liner and lavender shadow her cousin Yessica Martin has just applied.

Sandra has been waiting for as long as she has memories for her quinceañera - the celebration of her 15th birthday and her symbolic transformation from a girl to a young woman.

But this ceremony may be anachronistic, with its quaint and courtly traditions that no longer mesh with some Latina teens' sense of cool. The numbers and scale of quinceañeras are shrinking with the economy.

Some quinceañeras still top out at $150,000 for cruise-ship packages, Disneyland rentals and big-name dance bands. More have shrunk to low- four-figure affairs held in backyards or they've been bundled as several 15-year-olds join for one cost-cinching celebration.

Parents who have lost jobs have called to cancel photography appointments and flower orders.

Event halls, formalwear shops and caterers are seeing an overall decline in quinceañera spending. The hundreds of quinceañera websites that sell all the "necessities" for the celebrations - tiaras, champagne glasses, guest books, cake server sets, scepters, religious medals, Bibles, pillows and elaborate dresses - have taken hits. The demand on churches has lessened.

"We plan a celebration about once a month. We are doing more communal celebrations," said Alfonso Lara, the Hispanic Ministry coordinator for the Archdiocese of Denver, which is stressing families put more emphasis on the religious aspect of the ceremony than the spending.
Year of preparation
In Sandra's case, the last few days have been an exhausting whirlwind of final preparations, made more frantic by the fact she and her family are doing much of the work themselves to trim costs.

It has taken a year of planning and preparations and more than $10,000 to get to this day. Before it is over, a special Catholic Mass is going to be said in her honor. About 300 friends and relatives will gather for a dinner and dance where Sandra's name or picture embellishes everything from the saltshakers to the triple-tiered cake with a fountain in the middle. A slide show of her life will flash on a giant screen. A spotlight will follow her as she dances a waltz with her father.

Her father, a construction worker with four daughters, says he is glad to be financing festivities that amount to about a year's house payments. His two older daughters didn't want quinceañeras. He helped them buy cars instead.

Now that Jose Gutierrez finally has a daughter who wants the ceremony, he is trying to make it the best he can afford. She will have the white Hummer limousine to whisk her from the church to the party, the trio of Denver-based photographers and videographers to chronicle the day and the live band to keep revelers on their feet until midnight.

"It's my daughter," he says. "I want it to be good for her."

Sandra considers herself lucky to have a relatively lavish affair with the aid of a squadron of relatives to help decorate. A seamstress aunt made tablecloths, slipcovers and big purple bows for all the furniture in the ballroom. Older sister Yaneth Gutierrez raced around picking up flowers and decorations rather than paying delivery people.

The Gutierrezes also hooked up a trailer and drove in February to Jalisco, Mexico, where quinceañera shops line street after street. There they bought everything cheaper, from the centerpieces and decorative dolls to the shoes, jewelry and the dress with a skirt so full Sandra has to squeeze through doors sideways.

"The day is here. It is what it is," says Yaneth with a sigh as she surveys that dress and all the ceremonial items carefully displayed on her parents' bed before the ceremony - as tradition dictates.
Tradition meets modern life
The origins of these traditions are murky.

Julia Alvarez writes in her book "Once Upon a Quinceañera" that the quinceañera seems to be rooted in Mayan and Aztec rites as well as European court rituals with bits of "traditions" from Mexico and different Central American countries tacked on through the years.

But there is no definitive source for how it came to be that 15-year-old girls initially were presented to society when they reached marriageable age and, later, when they were deemed old enough to wear makeup, attend parties and date.

To the extent teens still want - and their families can afford - a quinceañera, some groups are trying to use them to address the statistics that afflict Latina girls in the United States.

Pregnancy, suicide, dropout and substance abuse rates are all higher than average among teenage Latinas. The Hispanic Cultural Center in Nampa, Idaho, is fighting those numbers by holding Stay in School Quinceañeras. Groups of 15-year-olds - boys and girls - dress in formal clothes for a gala event that stresses the importance of culture and respect for others and gives warnings about pregnancy.

Part of that message is ignored on the Internet where "quince" blogs allow girls to post videos and photos of their celebrations.

They draw praise: "omg, your dress is so cute," or, more often, nastiness: "just 2 let u know u look a hot mess sweetie dat dress in pink is so ill and ur makeup looks hurendous."

Twitters and texting are a headache for Sandra during the final practice for her group waltz.

With phones in the hands of many of her 18 attendants, the last-ditch practice outside the hotel is a shambles. Sandra melts into tears before she recognizes her frustration is relatively minor.

At the cramped one-room hair salon that morning, as she and her sisters and cousins sat in clouds of hair spray and puffs of curling iron steam, there had been discussion about how quinceañeras and their element of fairy-tale beauty sometimes clash with real life.

Cousin Sonia de la Torre's quinceañera had to be postponed when a cousin was murdered two months earlier. Hair stylist Carmen Cisneros had to cancel hers two days before the event when a sister died in a car accident. Shop owner Rosa Cisneros didn't have her quinceañera until she was 18 and there was enough money to do it.
The crowning touch
Sandra's day comes together without disaster of any magnitude. Her father straps glittering high heels on her feet before they waltz together and her eyes redden - this time with grateful emotion.

Everyone toasts her with sparkling apple cider. She pops balloons to find a key that will open her gift from her parents. Her friends gasp and clap when she pulls it from its wrapping - an iPhone!

Sandra beams. Her sisters may have gotten cars rather than have this day. Some of her friends and her "contacts" on the cellphone tucked into the bodice of her "passion purple" gown may not understand why she would follow the quaint traditions.

But all the work has been worth it. Her quinceañera has been as nearly perfect as she always imagined.
Nancy Lofholm: 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com
About the ceremony

The quinceañera is a coming-of-age celebration of a girl's 15th birthday - her "quince años." The celebration was used to introduce girls to society and signify they were ready for marriage. Now, it is looked at as the time when a girl is considered a woman who can wear makeup and high heels and date. The origins of the celebration are believed to stretch back to about 500 B.C. In the Aztec and Mayan cultures, girls had a ceremony to indicate they were ready for motherhood. | Traditions, 20A

Quinceañera traditions

Some of the rituals of the ceremony are believed to have been borrowed from European courts.

The celebration generally includes a religious element. The celebrant usually has a Catholic Mass said in her honor and receives traditional gifts such as a Bible, rosary and a medal. Other traditions include the father placing new high heels on his daughter's feet and dancing a waltz with her.

Quinceañeras grew more lavish after the tradition was brought to the United States from Mexico and other Central American countries. The parties often include live bands, limousines, catered dinners for hundreds, prom-style gowns and all the finery and traditional accouterments of a wedding - minus the groom.

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Quinceañera: Coming of age in a bad economy

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GRAND JUNCTION- In less than two hours, Sandra Gutierrez will be at the front of a church wearing a glittering tiara and a ball gown befitting a princess. For now, on this most important day in her young life, she is slumped at a kitchen counter in her parents' home dealing with a painful, bloodshot eye from the unfamiliar liner and lavender shadow her cousin Yessica Martin has just applied.

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Within seconds, Japanese bombers were dropping bombs and torpedoes, targeting the Arizona and seven other battleships.

Suddenly, Stratton felt the Arizona heave violently and rise several feet out of the water. A bomb had breached the ship's ammunition room and the tremendous explosion that followed sent the Arizona-and the more than 1,000 sailors and Marines aboard-to the bottom of the harbor.

"A 600-foot fireball just engulfed us, burning all of us real bad," Stratton recalled. "After that it was all about self-preservation, buddy. We weren't thinking about anything but getting the hell out of there."

That attack 75 years ago on America's Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor was a day that would "live in infamy," in the words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who addressed the nation the next afternoon. Despite a strong desire to keep out of World War II (1939-45), the U.S. was forced to declare war not only on Japan, but also on Japan's allies, Germany and Italy (see Timeline, p. 20).

The brutal war in the Pacific would last four years and end with the U.S. dropping atomic bombs on two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 200,000 people (see box, p. 21). Remarkably, however, the way America handled the seven-year occupation of Japan that followed led to the two countries becoming warm and devoted friends, which they remain today.

"In the decades since [the war], the relationship between the two countries has been about partnership, economic security, political partnership," says Peter Grilli, the president emeritus of the Japan Society of Boston. "America has been Japan's best ally since."

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Pearl Harbor: From "Infamy" to Friendship

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Within seconds, Japanese bombers were dropping bombs and torpedoes, targeting the Arizona and seven other battleships. Suddenly, Stratton felt the Arizona heave violently and rise several feet out of the water. A bomb had breached the ship's ammunition room and the tremendous explosion that followed sent the Arizona-and the more than 1,000 sailors and Marines aboard-to the bottom of the harbor.