🐤 Celebration time

🏦 Markets: A tough week on Wall Street didn’t get any better on Friday for two of the major indexes. The S&P 500 shed more than half a percentage point, which was enough to drive it past the correction threshold.

Daily losses for the Dow Jones were even worse, with a dip of well over 1% to finish the week.

One bright spot was the tech sector, with earnings reports from Amazon and Intel providing a boost to the Nasdaq, which crossed into correction territory earlier in the week.

👶 Parent trap: If you’re planning to go out to eat with your kids in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia, make sure they’re on their best behavior or be prepared to shell out some big bucks. The Toccoa Riverside Restaurant reportedly added a $50 surcharge for “adults unable to parent,” and it sparked a lot of social media debate. Some parents say it’s insulting and they’d never eat there while at least a few would-be patrons say a fee for unruly kids is justified.

💿 All about that Bass: Any big Garth Brooks fans out there? If so, you should know that his forthcoming 7-disc box set — “Time Traveler” — won’t be available at just any retailer. It’s being released exclusively through Bass Pro Shops. So if you’ve still got a CD player and you want to know what the country star has been working on lately, you can pick it up (along with a new rod and reel) at stores nationwide on Nov. 7 or pre-order online.

⚖️ Trial and error: U.S. Rep. George Santos (R-NY) has had a tumultuous time in Congress since he was elected last year. A host of lies and bizarre claims from his past have surfaced, making him the object of countless late-night talk show jokes. Now, he’s facing trial on an indictment that stops just short of two dozen counts, including identity theft and unauthorized credit card transactions. He pleaded not guilty to the charges yesterday.

🪖 Entering Gaza: Almost three weeks after Hamas militants staged a deadly attack on Israel, that nation’s military is ramping up its ground offensive in Gaza. Bombs are falling on the Palestinian region where an estimated 7,000 people have already been killed since the conflict started. Food, medicine, and other necessities are starting to run out for the Palestinians who remain in the area. There are also said to be more than 200 hostages — including Americans — being held by Hamas.

When the painting by master Claude Monet (you may have heard of him) was bought for $6.8 million and sold for a cool $8 million just 631 days later, investors in shares of the offering received their share of the net proceeds.

All thanks to Masterworks, the award-winning platform for investing in blue-chip art. To date, every one of Masterworks’ 16 sales out of its portfolio has returned a profit to investors. With 3 recent sales, investors realized net annualized returns of 17.6%, 21.5% and 35%.

How does it work? Simple, Masterworks files each offering with the SEC so that nearly anyone can invest in highly coveted artworks for just a fraction of the price of the entire piece.

Shares of every offering are limited, but Early Chirp readers can skip the waitlist with this exclusive link.

Halloween is coming up, but if you’re looking for a little more than just tricks and treats, there’s also the traditional Mexican celebration Dia de los Muertos — or Day of the Dead.

Chances are, you’ve at least heard about these annual festivities, but if you don’t know many details about the holiday, Early Chirp is here to help!

A brief history

Day of the Dead dates back to the ancient Mayan and Aztec cultures, which remembered their dead with specific offerings and rituals. Then, when Spanish settlers arrived in the 1500s, a hodgepodge of their beliefs, Catholic traditions, and pre-Hispanic celebrations merged to create the holiday as it’s known today.

Who, what, and when

There are a few important details that will help you understand the significance of the holiday, which actually lasts two days beginning on Nov. 1.

• Ofrendas: These are altars (often candles, photos, incense, or foods) that symbolize things that were important to deceased loved ones.
• La Catrina: A woman with a skeletal face and elaborate clothing has been associated with Day of the Dead for decades and represents the fact that death is a part of life.
• Marigolds: Known as “the flower of the dead,” this orange blossom is said to help escort spirits of the dead back to Earth.
• Makeup: Wearing facial art that showcases important symbols and colorful designs is another common way that people around the world participate in these celebrations.

Honoring these basic principles can be comforting and even fun for those who are just learning about the holiday. But if you’re planning to commemorate Day of the Dead this year, remember to do so with the utmost respect for the cultures that paved the way.

Humans have long gazed up at the moon and recognized what appears to be a face created out of its cratered surface. But that’s not the only celestial body in our solar system that seems to be looking back at us.

Jupiter’s frown

As NASA’s Juno mission sends back stunning images of the largest planet rotating around our sun, there’s one view that has created quite a buzz.

A huge region of the planet includes features that look a lot like a face … and not a happy one.

Its “mouth” is turned into a frown that could be interpreted as either sadness or disapproval. Either way, it’s got some people wondering: Does Jupiter know something that we don’t?

Here’s an explanation

We hate to spoil the fun, but of course the planet does not really have a face. Instead, the gaseous atmosphere is always shifting and it just happens to be in this familiar form for the moment.

That means by the next time Juno flies by, it might send back a more cheerful visage or some other pattern altogether.

All in your mind

We can’t blame Jupiter or its atmosphere for tricking us into seeing a face. Scientists have long known that the human brain is hard-wired to see eyes, a nose, and a mouth in a variety of places.

You’ve probably seen a “face” in everyday objects — from a handbag to a piece of fruit to the front end of a car.

And if you want to appear even smarter at your next social gathering, there’s a word you should know: pareidolia. It refers to the penchant for our minds to see faces (and other familiar patterns) in places where they don’t necessarily belong.

It’s one of the least-explored parts of the planet due to its inhospitable climate — but Antarctica wasn’t always a frozen wasteland.

And scientists say they have some new evidence to prove it.

A hidden landscape

Looking at the continent today, it’s easy to assume that it’s just a solid block of ice. But according to a new study, there’s one buried section of East Antarctica that offers a perfectly preserved glimpse of what it looked like as far back as 34 million years ago.

That was after Antarctica broke away from the Gondwana supercontinent during the Cretaceous era but before it was completely frozen over.

And that continental drift helped created the valleys and peaks that are now being discovered deep below the surface

Where the water flows

It’s been eons since liquid water ran across Antarctica’s surface, but the impact that these prehistoric rivers had on its landscape remain visible — at least in certain areas.

In regions where ice didn’t become thick enough to crush the layers below it, new techniques allow experts to map out the paths that water took from mountaintops to the shore.

While these features could be 34 million years old, their exact age remains a mystery for now. Since there was some warming and refreezing on the continent as recently as 14 million years ago, the buried landscape could have been altered more recently.

As one researcher explained: “What would be really intriguing is actually going to that location and drilling through the ice to get a sample of the rock and sediment underneath. That would be the only way we could confirm the age.”