While there have been several presidents in the White House without First Ladies, James Buchanan remains the only US president who remained a lifelong bachelor. That, coupled with his close relationship with William Rufus King, led to speculation that Buchanan was gay. The rumor was sometimes alluded to while Buchanan served in government, but was rarely mentioned in history books until relatively recently. Buchanan and King lived in the same boardinghouse for ten years while both served in Congress.

Each of these two middle-aged bachelor Democrats, Buchanan and King, had what the other lacked. King exuded social polish and congeniality. He was noted for being “brave and chivalrous” by contemporaries. His mannerisms could at times be bizarre, and some thought him effeminate. Buchanan, by contrast, was liked by almost everyone. He was witty and enjoyed tippling, especially glasses of fine Madeira, with fellow congressmen. Whereas King could be reserved, Buchanan was boisterous and outgoing. Together, they made for something of an odd couple out and about the capital.

While in Washington, they lived together in a communal boardinghouse, or mess. To start, their boardinghouse included other congressmen, most of whom were also unmarried, yielding a friendly moniker for their home: the “Bachelor’s Mess.” Over time, as other members of the group lost their seats in Congress, the mess dwindled in size from four to three to just two—Buchanan and King. Washington society began to take notice, too. “Mr. Buchanan and his Wife,” one tongue wagged. They were each called “Aunt Nancy” or “Aunt Fancy.” Years later, Julia Gardiner Tyler, the much younger wife of President John Tyler, remembered them as “the Siamese twins,” after the famous conjoined twins, Chang and Eng Bunker.

Thomas Balcerski, in his book Bosom Friends: The Intimate World of James Buchanan and William Rufus King, looked deep into that relationship and cautions us not to assume that friendships from almost 200 years ago expressed themselves the way they do now. He runs down the evidence we have, and explains the evidence we don't have, at Smithsonian.

Long before the Romans invaded Britain and built spas in the town of Bath, the king was enjoying the area's warm mineral springs. Bladud, the ninth king of Briton, stumbled upon the springs around 863 BC, according to the earliest record of his reign, which was the 12th-century chronicle History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth. That's the same source for what we know about King Arthur, so you may take it with a grain of salt. Anyway, the legend of Bath tells how Bladud was cured of a disfiguring skin disease by the miraculous springs. That story is surpassed by the time Bladud, as king, built himself a pair of wings so that he could fly. Both tales are charmingly told by Margo Lestz at The Curious Rambler.

(Image credit: Smalljim)   

We know actors train with voice coaches to learn accents, they work out to buff up, and they study the lives their characters may have led. But every actor is different, and some go to extraordinary lengths for a role. You might still have a hard time wrapping your head around spending months in torturous living arrangements just to understand a fictional character's motivation, or learning an entirely new language even when the movie is in your native tongue.

These extreme measures may have paid off by contributing to a stellar performance, but at what cost? At least they made it into a Cracked pictofacts list. And you have to admit, some of these training regimens are pretty cool.  

You can see all 26 actors and the lengths they went for a role at Cracked.

Even if you think you never want to hear "Let It Go" from the movie Frozen ever again, you'll love this video. Drag queen Katkat performs a lip-sync at the O Bar in Luzon, the Philippines, with special effects provided in a way you'll never forget. This is not an original skit, but they execute it oh-so-well.  -via reddit

You are probably familiar with the fossil skeleton called Lucy, an intact example of a possible human ancestor called Australopithecus afarensis that lived between four and two million years ago. She was discovered in Ethiopia in 1974. There were other species of Australopithecus, including one called A. anamensis, which was only known from a very few small bone fragments. In 2016, a nearly-complete skull was found in Ethiopia, not far from where Lucy was excavated. Two papers published Wednesday describe the skull they named MRD as A. anamensis, complete with a reconstruction of what this hominid looked like. More than that, research shows that he (the skull is from a male who lived a long life) and his kin could have lived concurrently with other species of Australopithecus.

The cranium, in addition to revealing facial characteristics, is shedding new light on the origin of Australopithecus and the species that followed. Importantly, at an estimated age of 3.8 million years old, A. anamensis likely lived alongside A. afarensis for around 100,000 years, according to the new research. This unexpected overlap means some species within the Australopithecus genus didn’t evolve linearly, with one species tidily following another in an orderly fashion, a process known as anagenesis. Rather, this new discovery points to a different scenario, in which multiple species co-existed at the same time in a process known as cladogenesis. Evolution, as we’ve long known, is often messy and complicated.

The timeline of human evolution is further upended as MRD displays features that are more human than that of A. afarensis (Lucy), a species which supposedly lived later. Read what we are learning about A. anamensis through the skull of MRD, and see astonishing pictures of what he may have looked like at Gizmodo.

Also: Read the story of how the skull was found at National Geographic.

(Image credit: Dale Omori, courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History)

Sarajevo is the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but before that it was part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. During the Yugoslav Wars, which led to the breakup of the federation in the late 20th century, Sarajevo was a war zone, particularly during the Bosnian War which included the Siege of Sarajevo from 1992 to '95.  Constant shelling by enemy forces left thousands of holes in the city's streets and buildings.

Many of the explosive craters left behind by the shelling were filled with red resin to mark the casualties suffered at the spot. The explosion patterns reminds some of a flower leading to the memorials being named “Sarajevo Roses.” However many of them also resemble giant bullet wounds lest anyone forget their violent origins.

See more Sarajevo roses at Atlas Obscura.  -via Nag on the Lake

The 2019 movie Godzilla: King of the Monsters showed us a new version of Godzilla on steroids, all jacked up and twice the size as he ever was before. The expensive movie was a box office disappointment, but it had enough weirdness to inspire Screen Junkies to give it an Honest Trailer to wrap up their summer blockbuster series.

In 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were dispatched by President Thomas Jefferson to explore the newly-purchased Louisiana Territory, which expanded the US to the Pacific Northwest. Lewis and Clark and the rest of their crew traveled 8,000 miles in two years. Along the way, they survived on what food they could find or shoot. That meant lots of deer, elk, and bison meat. What they didn't eat immediately was dried, smoked, and salted for later, and then washed down with lots of whiskey.  

But eating that much dried meat will back you up like nobody’s business, and for that, they had a supply of 1,300 pills about four times the size of an aspirin that contained none other than the wonder drug of the day: mercury. They got the stash from a doctor named Benjamin Rush, a good friend of Thomas Jefferson’s from back when they signed the Declaration of Independence together in Philly.

Rush, a preeminent physician of the day, prescribed an early 1800s-era cure-all called calomel, a frighteningly effective purgative with a high dose of mercury chloride. He’d made his own version, which Lewis and Clark referenced in their journals as Dr. Rush’s Bilious Pills. They were believed to empty excessive bile, which was thought to cause any number of ailments.

Mercury could ease constipation, and also syphilis, which was rampant in the expedition (although it wasn't a cure). But it was also really dangerous to the user. The Lewis and Clark expedition ingested so much mercury that scientists are using it to confirm whether a campsite was actually used during that historic trip. Read about the toilet woes of Lewis and Clark at Mel magazine.  -via Digg

We tend nowadays to think of cemeteries as spooky, abandoned places. We visit them only when obligated -or dared- to, and we dread thinking about our own final resting place. That wasn't the case in the past, when death was a bigger part of everyone's life. We had more children, more relatives, more disease, and having a place to put our deceased was a real concern. The cemeteries we set aside for them were nice places, like parks. In an era when there weren't enough green spaces set aside for the living, cemeteries were used as parks, for relaxing, picnicking, family reunions, and socializing.    

When it comes to green spaces, we’re a bit spoilt in New York City. There are over 1,700 parks (even if it doesn’t always feel that way) for our picnics, parties, and general frolicking to unfold. But 150 years ago, parks were still a privilege for the upper-class in America, if they even existed at all. So folks flocked to the next best thing: the cemetery. There, in the shady knolls of Boston’s Forest Hills Cemetery, or amongst the gothic gates of Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, 19th century Americans got to engage in their two favourite pastimes: bonding with the dead, and feeling their pastoral oats. Elaborate walkways, gardens, and follies abounded in the cemeteries – one even had a liquor license – in a way that’s made us wonder why cracking open a cold one with the deceased ever went out of style…

But it did, and socializing in a cemetery just died out. But that's changing, as those who operate cemeteries are running promotions to encourage visitors, even those who don't know anyone buried there. Read about the rise, fall, and resurgence of the cemetery as a gathering spot at Messy Nessy Chic.

Channel 4 is a public service TV network in the UK, called so because it offers an alternative to the BBC, BBC2, and ITV. Every once in a while they air some of the complaints they have received. They illustrate these real complaints in a way that makes one wish they got more complaints.  -via reddit

When Columbus stepped into the New World, Europeans began to see new and wondrous things they'd never seen before: tomatoes, pineapple, corn, cocoa, potatoes, and hammocks. Hammocks were so simple and comfortable you have to wonder why no one in Europe had thought of the idea before.

By the time Europeans made it to the mainland, hammocks were also fully established in the cultures of Mexico, Central America, and the hotter parts of South America. Their utility is obvious: They elevate the sleeper well above the ground, away from tropical insects and reptiles, and the woven netting maintains airflow—vital in the heat. They’re also incredibly portable. In the Caribbean, de las Casas described hammocks as being fairly stationary, attached to poles within a permanent house, but the form is versatile enough to serve those who live in one place as well as those who sleep somewhere different every night.

The hammock was likely the first human-created product (as opposed to a crop or mineral) that the European conquerors decided they simply must have. In the Spanish and Taíno War of San Juan–Borikén, or the Taíno Rebellion of 1511, the Spanish often took hammocks as spoils of war. Within 50 years of Columbus’s first journey to the Caribbean, hammocks had become the standard bedding on the ships of both the Spanish and English navies. They’re great at sea, swaying gently much of the time, and fully collapsible to take up as little precious space as possible.

The use of hammocks spread like wildfire, so it was no surprise that hammocks eventually earned themselves a bad reputation, or more accurately, those who used them were looked down upon. Read the history of the hammock at Atlas Obscura.

Jupiter has 79 moons that we know of. Twelve of them were just discovered in 2017. So the team who had the naming rights, led by Scott Sheppard from the Carnegie Institution for Science, put the task of naming five of them to an internet contest. You can imagine what they came up with. But this was no poll; they asked for suggestions, and there are rules.

“There are many rules when it comes to how we name moons,” explained Sheppard in a Carnegie Science press release. “Most notably, Jovian naming conventions require its many moons to be named after characters from Greek and Roman mythology who were either descendants or consorts of Zeus, or Jupiter.”

Other restrictions included a maximum of 16 characters per name, and final letters had to correspond to the moon’s direction of orbit (i.e. moons in retrograde orbit must end with an “e” and moons in prograde must end with an “a.”). Proposed names could not include an offensive word in any language or culture, or commemorate living persons, among many other restrictions.

Still, Moony McMoonface was a very popular suggestion. The names that were selected in the end are Pandia, Ersa, Eirene, Philophrosyne, and Eupheme. Find out what each of those names mean at Gizmodo.

(Image credit: Carnegie Science)

Trying to fake one's own death is more common than you probably thought. A family member of one of my former employers was caught in such a scheme, months after his grieving family held a funeral. These "pseudocides" are staged to escape debts, crimes, or bad relationships, or to get a fresh start as someone else. But it's not a victimless crime. Life insurance payouts are very often a reason for a fake death, and insurance companies hire investigators for any suspicious case.

“People do a remarkably limited amount of planning when it comes to faking their own deaths,” says Steven Rambam, a blunt-talking, New York P.I. who’s helped locate tens of thousands of missing and dubiously dead people over the course of his 40-year career. “Faking your own death is a full-time job, and I can guarantee you that if you slip up with even the slightest sign of life, we will find you.”

How do they do it? Find out at Mel magazine. -via Digg

As we developed websites and apps, others developed automated programs, or bots, to infiltrate them, sometimes to hack, but mostly to spread spam or skew statistics. So developers came up with Turing tests called CAPTCHAS to eliminate non-human users. But the bots got better, and so the tests had to get better, in an escalation that never ends. Tom Scott explains the process. This video is barely over five minutes- the rest is an ad.  

Shown at D23, the annual convention for Disney fans, the first part of this video blows by pretty quickly, showing us familiar scenes from the original Star Wars trilogy and even glimpses of the prequels. Fast forward through The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, and suddenly there's til-now-unseen footage from The Rise of Skywalker, leading up to a final snippet that raises so many questions. What is Rey wearing, and why? But what a cool lightsaber she's got! We won't know what it all means until The Rise of Skywalker premieres in December.