Creepy places, offices exercises and more in MNN's week in review

We've got it all this week — from gut-busting office exercises to the creepiest places in national parks — all part of our roundup of offbeat environmental news.

Fri, Oct 05 2012 at 5:02 PM

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National Parks, Halloween, Exercise

week in review images of desk exercises, creepy places and more

• America's national parks are full of beauty, but they're also home to many things that can strike fear in the hearts of hesitant hikers: dark places, wild animals and complete isolation. If you're looking to add a little spice to your next outdoor adventure, check out these 8 creepy locales that happen to be in national parks.

• This story about chair exercises for the office garnered a lot of attention this week — some of it hilarious. You can argue about chairs with wheels all you want, but we think you should put your energy into your abs instead.

• The gorgeous colors of the Staghorn sumac above is one of the many reasons we're glad fall is here. If your appreciation is more philosophical than visual, you'll enjoy Kimi Harris' post, Why I love fall.

• To have missed this week's presidential debate, you would have needed to have gone to great lengths, but it's possible. To catch up, Russell McLendon's environmental word cloud is an interesting visual summary of what was said — and what was not. Like this concept? Check out his visual summary of past presidential showdowns.

• Bayley the lab may look mellow (left), but she wasn't calm on the day she crashed into a 55-gallon aquarium and had to be rushed off to the ER. Her's is one of 12 cautionary tales from the pet insurance hall of fame.

• Should you give up coffee or drink another cup? With all the contradictory studies out there, we wanted to know. Melissa Breyer gets to the bottom of several coffee myths.

• It's about time to get your Halloween get-up in order. To help, here are plenty of homemade Halloween costume ideas.

• Toyota is scaling back its electric car plans, which were never very ambitious in the first place. Jim Motavalli explains why a go-slow message makes a lot of sense.

• One of our food bloggers raised a good question this week: Why are we convinced that cooking is hard? We all know it's not, but it's hard not to get sucked into convenience foods. Here's her solution.

• And finally, members of the winning 2012 Solar Decathlon Europe team have their heads in the trees — and that's a good thing. Check out the beautiful images of this canopy-inspired home design.

Plus: Learn more about the "Rain Room" exhibit (pictured below) that keeps patrons dry with 3-D technology.