Empress Elisabeth of Austria is having a moment, thanks to the Netflix series The Empress. Elisabeth, nicknamed Sisi, married her first cousin Emperor Franz Joseph I in 1854 at age 16. Sisi was a beautiful woman, and was painted and photographed in many fabulous dresses, with one exception- no one knew what her wedding dress looked like. There were no illustrators, photographers, or journalists allowed into the wedding ceremony, and the dress itself disappeared (the dress in the picture above is from her coronation as Queen of Hungary). Therefore, the empress's wedding dress has been a mystery for almost 200 years, without even an eyewitness description. The only clue is a sumptuous train that is believed to have been attached to Sisi's wedding dress.

(Image credit: Prof. Mortel)

That train is in the Imperial Carriage Museum in Vienna. Dr. Monica Kurzel-Runtscheiner, the museum's director, has been on a quest for years to uncover any clues as to the imperial wedding dress, with little luck until 2021. That's when an obscure portrait of Sisi was discovered in a Czech museum, wearing a dress with the exact train displayed in Vienna! The portrait was painted three years after the wedding, by an artist who wasn't officially associated with the royal family. How did that happen, when Sisi had gone to such lengths to keep the dress a secret? It's possible that three years later, she had second thoughts about archiving the look before destroying the dress, or maybe she was proud of still being able to fit into it after giving birth to two children, and possibly already pregnant with her third.

Dr. Kurzel-Runtscheiner spent months studying the painting, and then went to great lengths to actually recreate the dress, which is now displayed alongside the portrait in an exhibit at the Carriage Museum until November 5th. See the portrait and the replica dress alongside the story at Atlas Obscura.

There has been plenty of speculative fiction about artificial intelligence taking over the world and eliminating superfluous humans, whether by design or by accident, by messing with our national defense systems, infrastructure, or governments. But it's possible that the first deaths from AI might come from a place we'd never think of, harnessed by the very human desire to make a quick buck. The New York Mycological Society is warning the public about a rash of AI-generated books on mushroom foraging. What could possibly go wrong?

Searching for edible mushrooms in the wild is a growing hobby, one that should always be guided by experts in the field. There are poisonous mushrooms that resemble edible varieties, and it takes knowledge and experience to detect the difference. Samantha Cole's search of mushroom-foraging guides on Amazon revealed quite a few, some aimed at beginners, that were written by authors with no internet presence and no authentic credentials. She ran text samples through AI-detection programs that revealed they were likely written by ChatGPT (and some samples are easily detectible to anyone who writes a lot). To their credit, Amazon removed the books they were alerted about, but how many more are there?

In the age of self-publishing and on-demand printing, it's easier than ever to get a book listed for sale on Amazon. With ChatGPT, one can even skip the process of writing and editing it. The subject of mushroom-foraging might be just the first phase of dangerous AI publishing we will have to deal with. Read about the AI-generated mushroom guides at 404. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Camerist)

In the spots where the World Trade Center towers once stood, there is now a memorial to those we lost on September 11, 2001. It includes a museum and two massive pools of water below ground level, about an acre each, with waterfalls all around. The names of 2,983 victims from both 9/11 and from the 1993 WTC bombing are inscribed on parapets surrounding the pools. When the memorial closes at 8PM a dedicated crew gets to work maintaining it. This means cleaning the pools, which collect leaves, dirt, and debris every day, including some trash. They also brush up the algae and filter the water. The bronze plates with the inscribed names are also cleaned, and sometimes they have to repair acts of vandalism. The crew takes their work quite seriously, to make sure this sacred space is pristine when more visitors begin to arrive every morning at eight.

The National September 11 Memorial & Museum will hold special events for the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The schedule is here. -via Laughing Squid

Bored Panda posted a gallery of bad tattoos, taken from the subreddit shittytattoos. Most of them are very bad, in both taste and execution (and some are NSFW), but there are a couple that I find just plain cute. For example, redditor ClearAboveVis10SM showed us his tattoo that was drawn by his wife. She doesn't pretend to be an artist, but she drew this camel for him and he loves her, and now he has a permanent reminder of her efforts to take with him. I find that sweet.

 
Redditor firefisch actually likes this tattoo, but posted it at the subreddit anyway. This small, simple cat hints at a story behind it, and has a goofy face that's cartoony enough to get away with. I like it.

Redditor watrdog's brother did this tat. It's not highly artistic, but for a ghost it's totally non-threatening and downright cute. There may be a couple of other tattoos in the list that aren't horrible, but the vast majority of them are disasters. See 50 of them at Bored Panda.

Apologies for the headline, but you cannot approach the Octopus Garden without the Beatles song playing in your head. This garden is two miles deep at Davidson Seamount, an area in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. It's a popular nesting ground for the pearl octopus (Muusoctopus robustus), and may contain as many as 20,000 octopuses and their eggs. The Octopus Garden is the largest octopus nesting area ever discovered. It was first noticed in 2018, but with new technology, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) has gotten an up close look.

Why do octopuses come here to nest? The garden is among the remains of an extinct volcano, where there are thermal vents that warm the water. At that depth, you would expect water temperatures to hover around 35°F (1.6°C), but those thermal vents bring the surrounding water up to 51°F (11°C). The warmer water causes octopus eggs to mature much faster, which shockingly takes years anyway. MBARI has much more on these octopuses at their website. -via Metafilter

When Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon faith, died in 1844, his successor Brigham Young took most of Smith's followers to Utah territory. But not all of them. Others were led by James Jesse Strang, who dreamed of a community for his followers. Responding to orders from an angel that appeared to him, he took those followers to Beaver Island, Michigan. They quickly built roads, farms, schools, and businesses, and established a government with Strang as its head. He even declared himself king! Within a few years, almost all the non-Mormon residents of Beaver Island had left.

Strang enacted some questionable practices, like public punishment for transgressors, and polygamy, which he had earlier rejected. He had both supporters and enemies, which makes tracking down the truth about him difficult. A reputation for piracy grew up around the island, and it was said that Beaver Island residents were eager to rob any passing ship. Others say that was blown out of proportion. Strang was also said to have poached wives from other men. He was eventually killed in 1856 by two of his own followers, and his home was burned to the ground. Almost 200 years later, people still can't agree on whether Strang was an upstanding founding father of the community or a deranged cult leader. Read of the rise and fall of King Strang at Atlas Obscura.

In the 1960s, Clint Eastwood made a name for himself starring in a trilogy of Westerns directed by Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone. These "spaghetti Westerns" were filmed in Spain. For the third film, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, a huge cemetery was built in the Castilla y León region out in the country, five kilometers from the nearest village. The Spanish military created more than 5,000 fake graves with markers or crosses for the film's climax, which takes place at Sad Hill Cemetery. After filming, the crew left the cemetery as it was and never returned. The set was forgotten and was reclaimed by nature.

But in 2015, a group called the Sad Hill Cultural Association went on a quest to find Sad Hill Cemetery. It wasn't easy, and when they located the cemetery, restoring it to its 1966 appearance was also a chore. Spanish filmmaker Guillermo de Oliveira heard about the project, and made a documentary about finding and renovating Sad Hill, and included interviews with everyone from the locals who worked as extras to Clint Eastwood himself. The restored cemetery is now in the Spanish heritage register, and it's a tourist attraction. Read the story of Sad Hill Cemetery at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: Mijnmedia)

The all-you-can-eat buffet all but disappeared during the first years of COVID-19, but have sprung back up all over America. This video from Mashed explains the tricks that restaurants serving those buffets use to profit on unlimited food by filling you up quickly, before you down three plates of roast beef. Well, that's in the first half. The rest of the video is to help you select healthier foods when you are confronted with a cornucopia of choices. It's true that people often approach a buffet with the idea of getting the most for their money, and this video will help, but that's not always the best strategy.

Instead of trying to game the system by eating too much, or eating the more expensive food, maybe you should focus on the overall experience. First, consider what kind of food the place has, and is that something you will enjoy. Find out how much the all-you-can-eat meal costs before you go, so you won't feel challenged or disappointed when you get there. Take into account that you won't be taking home leftovers as you would from regular sit-down restaurant. If you are still psyched up for the experience, go for it.

Also, be aware that there are other benefits from an all-you-can-eat buffet. When my kids were young enough to eat free, a buffet was the perfect place for them to try a tiny bit of many new foods, without the risk of preparing a recipe that they would hate. It was also a cost-effective way to feed my husband, who was 6'6" and could easily eat enough for three people. My strategy was to select foods I liked that were difficult to recreate at home. But now that I live alone, I prefer ordering from a menu, knowing that I will take half of my dinner home for another meal. -via Digg

August is almost gone, which means that stores are loading their shelves with products of all kinds, flavored or scented with pumpkin spice. Now that wonderful scent comes to your butt, too! Dude Wipes, a company that caters to men pooping, has a website full of hilariously intimate content, but also sells wet wipes for men in a variety of scents. The newest is called DUMPkin Spice. Yes, it's the scent of fall, with cloves, nutmeg, and other fall spices. Well, we hope it's just the scent; that's the last place we'd want to put real cinnamon and ginger. But if you want to feel clean and ready for autumn, you can accomplish that with one wipe. The first review gives the product five stars.

Don't know how i ever enjoyed fall before these wipes. This year, I'm ready. Now, my whole body can smell like fall, including my butt.

Get a three-pack with a total of 144 DUMPkin Spice wipes for just $14.99. It would be worth it just to leave these out for guests during a party for a real conversation starter. Watch them come out of the bathroom trying to suppress giggles!  -via Geeks Are Sexy

A 64-year-old woman in New South Wales, Australia, became ill with abdominal pain, diarrhea, dry cough, fever, and night sweats. That was in 2021. By 2022, she was also suffering from forgetfulness and depression, prompting doctors to do an MRI scan on her brain. They found a mass that needed to be removed, but during surgery were shocked to find an 8-centimeter (3-inch) live roundworm!

The roundworm, still alive, was sent for analysis, and was identified as Ophidascaris robertsi, a parasite normally found in pythons. This patient was the first ever recorded as a human infection of this worm.

With the worm removed from her brain, the patient is still undergoing treatment, since the rest of her body must be scanned for other larva. Medication can be used, but it is dangerous for the brain, as inflammation can be a side effect of the treatment. Read the case of the woman with a worm in her brain at the Guardian. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Canberra Health)

When I saw the headline for the video, I expected that a company's building was so crowded that someone got shifted into an elevator the way a new hire is sometimes assigned a closet for an office. But this was very deliberate, and honestly very cool. The building is the Baťa Skyscraper, in Zlín, Czechia. It was built in 1939, 16 stories of state-of-the-art architecture. The elevator office, built for the Bata Shoe company's president, is the ultimate corner office, one that can move to any floor when he wants. Yes, it has plenty of room, and is equipped with electricity, phones, and running water!

Alas, the history of the elevator office was complicated by the fact that it was completed in 1939 in Czechoslovakia. We are lucky that in 2023, the office is accessible because it is now part of the building's museum, and Tom Scott went there to show it to us.

Carl Bach threatened to kill his wife Mary in 1881. She kicked him out of the house, but he returned and indeed killed her in a most gruesome way. It's a tragic story that happens everywhere, but Carl's murder trial was the most sensational thing that had happened in Bowling Green, Ohio.

When a new courthouse was built a few years later, it included an exhibit from the trial, including the murder weapon, the noose used to hang Carl Bach, and three of Mary's fingers he had hacked off, preserved in a jar. The display stayed there for almost a century, then was transferred to the Wood County Museum in 1979. The locals had mixed feelings about the exhibit over time, but people traveled from far and wide to see the three fingers in a jar. In more modern times, the unseemliness of displaying human body parts prompted the museum to remove the exhibit in 2014, but due to popular demand, they were again displayed beginning in 2020. Read about the case, the exhibit, and the controversy over Mary Bach's fingers at Jstor Daily. -via Strange Company

If you really want to see the fingers, Roadside America covers the exhibit.

(Image credit: The Wood County Historical Society)

The production of beer goes back to the beginnings of agriculture, and there are experts who think that the desire for alcoholic beverages actually led to the development of agriculture. but while this video from Weird History Food starts off with the origins of beer, it doesn't claim to be a comprehensive history, not does it proceed in a linear fashion. Rather, it's a collection of anecdotes from the drink's extensive history, kind of like a highlight reel, which is more fun anyway. One thing that stands out is the availability of some historic recipes and beers recreated from earlier famous lagers and ales. And one ice cream. -via Laughing Squid

As soon as the United States became an independent country, the 13 existing states got really territorial. You can see on this map that six states just extended their borders westward to the Mississippi River, regardless of contiguity, while Massachusetts also claimed what is now Maine, and New York claimed what is now Vermont. Eventually that was sorted out, but Georgia, the last holdout, went through some real pains on the way.

In 1794, four companies, set up especially for the purpose, paid half a million dollars for about 40 million acres of land. Even taking into account all the bribes — another half a million — that was a ridiculously low amount: four acres to a dollar.

Georgians were furious, and state legislators, appalled to have been caught taking bribes, quickly rescinded the sale. But the contracts were signed, and the courts got involved. That set up a battle between landowners, the state of Georgia, the federal government, and US citizens in a country that was still trying to figure out how to be a working democracy. The legal case went to the Supreme Court, and established several legal precedents we still follow. It also led to the Indian Removal Act of 1830. And the establishment of Alabama and Mississippi. Read a quick overview of the Yazoo Land Scandal at Big Think.  -via Atlas Obscura
 

Beginning on August 8, wildfires spread through the Hawaiian island of Maui, destroying the city of Lahaina. The fire killed at least 115 people, and 388 people are still unaccounted for. Images of the aftermath are chilling, but what's with that one house with the red roof?  

After years of apartment living, Trip Millikin of Lahaina and his wife took the plunge and bought a house in 2021. It was built in the 1920s and needed extensive renovation. The neighbors were glad someone was going to live in the historic house and try to save it. The Millikins had five layers of asphalt shingles removed and installed a red metal roof. They also removed shrubs around the foundation and replaced them with rock as a barrier against termites. These are just some of the improvements they completed in 2022, but they proved to be the most crucial when the wildfire leveled the rest of the neighborhood.

The Millikins were in Massachusetts when the fire raged through, and were devastated to hear of the destruction. They were shocked to hear that their home survived, and have pledged to use it as a headquarters for the rebuilding efforts. Read about the Lahaina "miracle house" at NPR. -via Nag on the Lake