http://cache.jezebel.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/jezebel.com.png http://jezebel.com/tag/fear http://jezebel.com/tag/fear

The heartiest of congratulations goes out to Ortrud Kastaun of Essen, Germany, whose collection of 2,053 different clown-related items has qualified her for inclusion in the 2012 Guinness Book of World Records. Even more remarkably, when the lights go down in Ortrud's workshop, her army of inanimate harlequins and jesters comes magically alive, marching steadily towards you, single-mindedly of purpose, stopping at nothing until the last shreds of flesh have been stripped from your bones, all the while Headmistress Ortrud laughing, laughing, laughing in delight as your darkest coulrophobic nightmares come to horrifying life. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5854215&view=rss&microfeed=true

Got a lot of friends? Thank your amygdala! A new study may shed light on how this brain structure, often associated with fear, may regulate our social lives as well. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5719759&view=rss&microfeed=true

A woman, whom the medical journal Current Biology simply calls SM, has a rare from of brain damage, and literally can not feel fear. But researchers sure had a good time trying to scare her! More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5715266&view=rss&microfeed=true

The message I got from sex ed was this: sex will kill you. Turns out I wasn't alone. And such scare tactics may not be effective. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5703580&view=rss&microfeed=true

"My own mother didn't foster an upbringing that made women seem like loving people," says a man writing to advice columnist Cary Tennis. What follows brings up a whole host of difficult issues. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5679661&view=rss&microfeed=true

Halloween is a time to embrace the spooky, the creepy, the frightening that Hollywood's most twisted minds have to offer. But what if you, like me, are a big fucking wimp about all things horror? More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5677124&view=rss&microfeed=true

According to a new study, women are faster and better than men at distinguishing between fear and disgust, especially in other women. This may have implications for the treatment of diseases with "a gender component," like autism. [EurekAlert] More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5386947&view=rss&microfeed=true

Once again, The Onion hits a bit too close to home with this hilarious article about a theater audience that completely freaks out when performers leave the stage and take their act into the aisles. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5179380&view=rss&microfeed=true

Prescient soothsayer Richard Lawson over at Gawker was totally right in his irrational hatred of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist: it is a quarterlifer's false idealization of his or her generic suburban teenhood. However, having seen the movie I need to defend one instance where Nick and Norah becomes a completely realistic portrayal of New Jersey-bred nerds. When Nick and Norah finally consummate their movie-long sexual tension, their hookup is exactly the the way two indie rock obsessed 17-year-olds would get down in real life. The sordid details (minor spoiler alert) after the jump! More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5060117&view=rss&microfeed=true

Does this picture make you clench your anus in horror, sweat and dart your eyes around wildly? If so, you might be arachnophobic! Or a Republican, especially if it also makes you want to nuke Iran, force-march illegal immigrants back to Mexico, firebomb abortion clinics and do... something with gay people (yeah, I ran out of absurdist ideas there). Anyway, so, there's this study of a whole 46 Nebraksans in the journal Science that suggests that people with strong, self-identified conservative views react more strongly with fear to pictures like this (and of a bloody face, and of a maggot-filled wound) than do those with self-identified liberal views. In fact, liberals looked at pictures like this and had no more reaction than looking at a fuzzy bunny. Who's wrong? Everyone! More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5052415&view=rss&microfeed=true

John McCain has told us all that he didn't want to go negative, it's just that no one was paying attention to him when he wasn't acting like an asshole, what with the long Democratic primary season and the historic nature of the Democrats' options and whatnot. So, he had to go negative. Don't you see? Jason Linkins and I don't really see, but we're happy to blame NBC News President Steve Capus — who ran with the lipstick-on-a-pig story and removed Keith Olbermann from anchoring MSNBC's election coverage for having the audacity to suggest that the RNC's porny, eyeball raping homage to the courage of Republicans on 9/11 at the convention was a disgusting display. That, plus the End of the World (financially speaking), how drilling babies will solve all that and Sarah Palin (yes, more Sarah Palin) begin after the jump. More »
]]> http://jezebel.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5049919&view=rss&microfeed=true