A hundred years later, movie fans are aware of Rudolph Valentino as the biggest male sex symbol of his era. They may not be as familiar with his second wife Natacha Rambova.

Many considered the Hollywood couple to be “lavender lovers,” a name given to a male-female pair who marry for convenience and to conceal the true nature of their stigmatized sexual orientation. Whether it was a marriage of convenience or a romantic affair, Rudolph Valentino and Natacha Rambova became one of Hollywood’s power couples of the 1920s. He was Hollywood’s first sex symbol. She was a spiritualist costume designer who dabbled in acting but would later abandon her career to become an Egyptologist. Both talented performers, the couple starred in films and toured the world in dance troupes. Rambova even became Valentino’s manager during the height of his film career. Yet, despite their success in Hollywood, the pair could never seem to escape controversy or scandal. One thing is sure, Rudolph Valentino and Natacha Rambova’s relationship was never conventional.

Valentino and Rambova set themselves up for gossip and scandal from the beginning, as he was still married to his first wife when they wed in Mexico. But considering the way Hollywood engineered what was known about their stars in those days, rumor is most of what we have. Read about this lives of the reluctant Hollywood sex symbol and the talented woman who fought misogyny her whole life at Messy Messy Chic.

The year 1899 saw a shocking news story from Australia, in which a dead man won a bicycle race. For this to be at all plausible, you must know that 23-year-old James Somerville was very much alive at the start of the race, but died on the last stretch where he led the field of 50 competitors.

At the start he quickly forged ahead, closely followed by another crack rider named Percy Cliff. They left 48 riders away in the rear and shot around the track almost wheel to wheel. When within 25 yards of the tape Somerville, who still led by half a wheel, was seen to relax his hold on the handlebars. His pedals whirled around, however, and he pluckily held his position. Five yards from the tape Cliff put on a tremendous spurt and struck Somerville’s hind wheel, shooting the machine with its then almost inanimate burden, like a rocket under the tape.

The crowd yelled wildly, but silence ensued when Somerville, after crossing the tape, plunged head foremost from the machine. When picked up he was dead. Physicians who examined his body said he must have had an attack of heart failure on the last lap. Jackson [MI] Citizen Patriot 25 February 1899: p. 1

It was in all the papers, so it must be so, right? It turns out that in the month between the time the race was held in Australia and when the story was published in the US, a lot of details were dropped, assumed, and embellished. Read the true story of James Somerville, who both died and won the race, but not as it was reported, at The Victorian Book of the Dead. -via Strange Company 

(Image source: Flickr user James Vaughan)

If you know English pretty well and love word games, then you'll want to try the Divergent Association Task. Yes, it's a research task, but it's fun, too. Your job is to think of ten English nouns that are as different from each other as possible. Try to think of words that have no association at all. It's harder than you might think, but I did pretty well for a first try.

Your score is 90.0, higher than 96.37% of the people who have completed this task

I will post my words and their scores in the comments, in case you want to avoid any influence before you try it yourself. -via Metafilter

PS: In looking for an illustration for this post, I first searched for "fish on a bicycle" and found that was quite common. My next idea was "cow kayak," and lo and behold, the perfect image came up.

The new Star Wars-themed hotel opening at Walt Disney World in Florida next year is more like a fantasy camp experience. Attached to the new Galaxy's Edge theme park, the hotel called Galactic Starcruiser will offer accommodations, meals, and a two-night immersive Star Wars experience for the whole family. It will cost you, though.

The lowest announced pricing tier is $4,809 for two guests. That includes a standard cabin, food and drink (except alcohol, which is extra) and an experience that includes activities such as lightsaber training, bridge crew training and a planet excursion to Batuu (a.k.a. the Galaxy’s Edge park). A family of four can expect to pay a minimum of $5,999.

There are no prices yet listed for the hotel’s upgraded rooms, dubbed the Galaxy Chess Suite — which includes two windows, instead of one, looking out into “space” — and the Grand Captain Suite (three space windows!), but one assumes those prices are most impressive. There are other add-ons too such as Captain’s Table seating rather than eating at communal tables in the “Crown of Corellia Dining Room.”

And that's why people are already calling this resort Canto Bight. If you're willing to pay for it, I'm sure you can extend your stay to four nights or more (or you could send your kids to Space Camp for a week at a fraction of the price). Read more about Disney's Galactic Starcruiser and see the trailer here. -via reddit

In its 3rd season, “When Irish Eyes Are Crying,” Detective Gina Calabrese (Saundra Santiago) falls for an Irish philanthropist—played by Liam Neeson—who turns out to be a former IRA member and current terrorist. pic.twitter.com/tVnjUxRl65

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021

The TV series Miami Vice ran for five seasons back in the 1980s. It was extremely popular and had quite an influence on music and fashion, if not drug-smuggling itself. The bad guys changed every episode, so there was a parade of guest actors each week. Some were already stars, while others were up-and-coming actors who are much better known today, almost 40 years later. Daniel Holland put together a Twitter list of those stars, with screenshots as evidence. In fact, you didn't even have to be an actor to play a drug dealer on Miami Vice.

Frank Zappa was known for many things but acting wasn’t really one of them. That’s why it was such a surprise to see him on Miami Vice. Here he plays an intimidatingly persistent character hell-bent on recovering a large sum of money. pic.twitter.com/1t41j61VoM

— Daniel Holland🎗 (@DannyDutch) August 4, 2021

Some you may remember, others may surprise you. See the whole thing at Twitter, with additional contributions in the replies, or at Threadreader. -via Laughing Squid

Watch a bobcat frolicking with her kitten on the roof of a home in Phoenix, Arizona. It was all fun and games for a minute or so, but then she noticed the homeowners recording her through a window. That's where it get weird. Imagine a wild predator staring at you with dilated eyes, just inches away. Sure, there's glass to protect you, but her gaze is enough to make one's stomach twist a little, even on video. -via Boing Boing

One of the most mind-bending ideas in medical science is the concept of growing spare parts to use when ours break down. Andrew Pelling wants to do this using vegetables, by harnessing what makes plants different from animals- their fibrous cellular walls. Believe it or not, Pelling's work was inspired by Audrey II in the movie Little Shop of Horrors.

Around 10 years ago, Pelling, a biophysicist, started thinking with his team about materials that could be used to reconstruct damaged or diseased human tissues. Surrounded by a rainbow of fresh fruits and vegetables at his University of Ottawa lab, Pelling and his team dismantle biological systems, mixing and matching parts, and put them back together in new and creative ways. It’s a little bit like a hacker who takes parts from a phone, a computer, and a car to build a robotic arm. Or like Mary Shelly’s Dr. Frankenstein, who built a monster out of cadavers. Except Pelling’s team has turned an apple into an ear and, most recently, a piece of asparagus into a scaffold for spinal-cord implants.

Pelling believes the future of regenerative medicine—which uses external therapies to help the body heal, the same way a cut heals by itself or a broken bone can mend without surgery—is in the supermarket produce aisle. He calls it “augmented biology,” and it’s a lot less expensive—by thousands and thousands of dollars—than implanting organs donated by humans, taken from animals, or manmade or bioengineered from animal tissue.

Read about Pelling's research, including spinal cord regeneration using asparagus spears at Atlas Obscura.

Yeah, there's nothing random at all about the number they issued you. Considering how many times people cancel a credit card number due to losing the card or suspected fraud, I'm surprised that they haven't had to add digits like crazy already. Warning: this video involves math, but you don't have to do it yourself. Just be impressed at the way computers can validate a credit card number in an instant. The video is only four minutes long, the rest is an ad. -via Boing Boing

Remains of a "giant vampire bat" were discovered in an Argentinian cave. The fossil remains are of a species called, dramatically, Desmodus draculae after Bram Stoker's vampire.

Their study, published in Ameghiniana, says that fossils of the giant vampire bat were found inside a cave located near the city of Miramar and date back 100,000 years ago. Research indicates that this cave was a burrow used by giant sloths that were nearly five metres tall, which were possibly prey of the giant vampire bats.

The researchers estimate that the giant vampire bat was approximately the size of a computer keyboard. The fossils that were discovered include a lower jaw bone and currently reside in the Paleontological Laboratory of the Miramar Museum of Natural Sciences.

Um, yikes? My keyboard is 11 inches long, which is only about twice the size of the little mosquito-eating bats that hang out in my chimney. Some fruit bats have 16-inch bodies. Then again, some keyboards may be 16 inches long. So how big was the giant vampire bat? It turns out that the find in Argentina is not a newly-discovered species. Wikipedia tells us more about Desmodus draculae.

It is the largest-known vampire bat to have ever lived. The length of its skull is 31.2 mm (1.23 in), and its humerus length was approximately 51 mm (2.0 in), as compared to the extant common vampire bat at 32.4–42.4 mm (1.28–1.67 in). Its skull was long and narrow, and its face had an upturned snout.[6]

So while the giant vampire bat wasn't all that big, it was much bigger than the puny vampire bats we have today. They would have to use quite a bit of artistic license to make a horror film about Desmodus draculae. Still, you have to give credit to a monster that sucked blood from a 20-foot-tall sloth. Read more about the latest discovery at the Weather Network. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Miramar Museum of Natural Sciences)

The most entertaining thing that happened at the Yankees-Orioles game Monday was that a cat wandered onto the field and found himself the center of attention. The grounds crew made a lame attempt to remove him, but the crowd was cheering for the cat. -via Digg

Okay, what we need to take our minds of the problems of the real world is a combination of three fantasies: Halloween, LEGO, and Star Wars. Disney+ is jumping into all that with both feet with a special called Lego Star Wars Terrifying Tales.

This fall, Poe and BB-8 will return in Lego Star Wars Terrifying Tales, an animated Halloween special set after the events of The Rise of Skywalker that follows the legendary pilot and his droid as they travel to the volcanic planet Mustafar. When Poe (Jake Green) and BB-8 are forced to make an emergency landing there, they happen to encounter Graballa the Hutt (Dana Snyder), the newest owner of Darth Vader’s foreboding castle, which is being transformed into a themed resort.

A tour of the castle is an opportunity to tell scary tales, plus there's a monster of some sort lurking inside. The special streams beginning on October first, and you can read more about it at Gizmodo.

An interesting list at Cracked tells us about the early versions of some of our modern conveniences, when they weren't so modern or convenient, but that's all a matter of opinion. The oldest of these is a story of how the Cherokee used turtle shells for calendars. It turns out that a turtle shell has 13 segments on the inside, and 28 segments on the outside. That corresponds well to 13 lunar cycles in a year, and 28 days in each lunar cycle.

A First Nations legend describes how the unassuming turtle received its divine temporal cognizance. Many moons ago, long before Creator peopled the Earth, the animals could talk. One day, Turtle and Raven exchanged pleasantries, and Turtle, lamenting his terrestrial limitations, wished to taste some of that sweet sky for himself.

So Turtle bit onto a twig, and Raven lifted him high into the heavens. But when Turtle opened his mouth to express his pleasure, he fell to the ground and shattered his shell. Creator took pity on Turtle and put its shell back together with the purpose of tracking the moons. Creator also bestowed long life on Turtle and made it the Keeper of Knowledge.

Read the rest of that story, plus four others at Cracked.

(Image credit: Pierre5018)

Bella Burton was born with Morquio syndrome, which affects bone development. Bella also has a service dog named George, her beloved great Dane who not only offers physical support by keeping Bella upright and protected, but also emotional support that gave her the confidence to try things beyond what was considered possible for her. You can follow Bella and George at Facebook. -via Laughing Squid

A lot of new ideas that inventors consider revolutionary come and go for one reason or another, and we tend to forget about them when they aren't successful. In contrast, the Segway was unveiled in 2001 and became a spectacular failure for many reasons, one of which is because it was so overhyped. Its development was pretty much an accident that engineers considered a lot of fun. But keeping the project a secret (known internally as Ginger and publicly only as IT) meant that there was no real-world beta testing, no marketing research, and no devil's advocate, while the speculation over a vague leaked proposal went unexpectedly viral and sent expectations sky high. Engineers loved it, venture capitalists loved it, but everyone else expected something cool and useful.

Inside Magazine’s debut issue published in February. On the cover: “WHAT ‘IT’ IS.” The author of the story, a freelancer named Adam Penenberg, had combed domain-name registrations and public patent records, and was positive he’d figured out the answer: IT was a hydrogen-powered scooter. “I was on, like, every show for a week,” Penenberg told me. “I was on the Today show with Katie Couric. I don’t know how many hundreds of interviews I must have done that week.”

Dean Kamen hadn’t been careful enough for the new world of the internet. All those patents he filed? His inventor’s paranoia backfired. In an earlier time, a journalist would have had to do a lot more legwork to dig up those patents, but now they were all right there on the patent office’s website.

Penenberg may have basically worked out that Ginger was a scooter, but plenty of people didn’t believe it. Or maybe it was just more fun to speculate like crazy. Some of that speculation happened on sites like Slashdot, where one poster, for example, correctly pegged that the name Ginger was meaningful—but then declared authoritatively that IT was a hoverboard, because the Ginger in question was the heroine of the animated movie Chicken Run, who is convinced she can teach chickens to fly.

After all this, the actual Segway was a letdown- bulky, expensive, and not at all cool-looking. Read the story of the Segway's unintentional rollout from the perspective of a journalist who was part of it at Slate. -via Digg

(Image credit: Richard)

If you've ever wanted to go to the bottom of the ocean in a diving bell, then you should head to the coast of Germany, where they actually have a few, and tourists are welcome. But if you can't go right now, Tom Scott will show you what it's like. Personally, I'd recommend waiting until they build these in spots with a better view. -via reddit