October 3: Ready your binoculars for the year's brightest appearance of ice giant Uranus.
October 4: Learn about early filmmaking tech when Thomas Edison National Historic Park in West Orange, N.J., screens the 1910 film Frankenstein.
October 8: Extreme drought and cyclonic winds spawned a firestorm in 1871, annihilating Peshtigo, Wis., and inspiring World War II firebombs.
October 10-18: Get the popcorn ready as New York's sixth annual Imagine Science Film Festival takes over screens in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan.
October 17-19: New York's Margaret Mead Film Festival spotlights international films such as Gringo Trails.
October 19: A 1515 woodcut of a rhino and Robert Hooke's 1667 illustration of a flea star in "Natural Histories," an exhibit of images from rare books in New York's American Museum of Natural History Library.
October 23: Mole Day! Rise and shine at 6:02 today to honor the mole, Avogadro's unit for measuring mass in chemical reactions. (The subterranean creature of the same name is the day's mascot).
October 27: Take to the trails on the birthday of Theodore Roosevelt, the conservationist president who reserved 230 million acres of land for national parks, forests and monuments. Bully!
October 31: The fear response floods extra blood to your leg muscles, prepping you for fight or flight. Remember that this Halloween when a haunted house has you quaking in your boots!