todayilearned - kbin.social

TIL that Gwyneth Paltrow is not just a harmless grifter (arstechnica.com)

I never went as far as to defend Gwyneth Paltrow, but after her Hot Ones appearance I created a post (which I will link in the comments) where I suggested that she’s done no more harm than male grifters and that the dislike of her as a person was primarily due to misogyny. That’s before I learned about her promotion of these...

TIL March is Irish American heritage month, but we don't have a British-American, or Scottish-American heritage month.

TIL: Eating pine nuts can occasionally cause some people to experience a bitter or metallic taste lasting from a few days up to 2 weeks (www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au)

The symptoms normally disappear after several days and there are no adverse health effects....

There are French controlled islands off the coast of Newfoundland (Canada) (en.m.wikipedia.org)

…a self-governing territorial of France

Some owls have skinny long legs (lemm.ee)

Vladamir Putin played the piano and sang 'Blueberry Hill' in English (youtu.be)

I don’t like the guy, I just found this on YouTube and decided to share it

TIL about "Swill milk" where cows were fed distillery waste causing cow teeth rot and disease. It was also adulterated with raw eggs, burn sugar, etc. Swill milk lead to over 8,000 infant's deaths (en.wikipedia.org)

TIL There's a mostly herbivorous spider in Mexico and central America (en.wikipedia.org)

Bagheera kiplingi inhabits Mimosaceae trees, Vachellia in particular, where it consumes specialized protein- and fat-rich nubs called Beltian bodies. The nubs form at the leaf tips of the acacia as part of a symbiotic relationship with certain species of ants. The spiders actively avoid the ants that attempt to guard the Beltian...

TIL some cities (like NYC) pump nitrogen into their phone lines to keep water out. (hackaday.com)

TIL there is a monument to the peer review process in Moscow, Russia (www.nature.com)

TIL only 3% of manufactured foods sold in the U.S. are deemed "healthy" by the Food and Drug Administration (www.cbsnews.com)

Raw foods such as fruits and vegetables are not part of this 3% because they are not manufactured.

TIL about the concept of Weaponized Incompetence, a psychological concept wherein you strategically fail to perform something you don't actually want to do (en.wikipedia.org)

This is illustrated by getting elected on a platform of erasing student loan debt and then pretending that you can’t do anything about it, or claiming to be against genocide and drawing out or never performing the process of pulling financial and political support for an ally who’s committing genocide.

TIL the etymology of british isles names (www.youtube.com)

cross-posted from: lemm.ee/post/25160716...

TIL there is a meat loving sea fleas that casually nibble on your skin at the beach but in rare sever cases it can cause real injuries (www.theguardian.com)

TIL - The Library of Congress has a collection of slave stories, records and photos (www.loc.gov)

I was looking for a folk song from Oh Brother Where Art Thou and it sent me to this. I thought it would have the song, but it was this particular slave’s story.

TIL a woman delivered three minutes of Patton Oswalt's 9-minute Parks and Rec Star Wars filibuster speech at a real Michigan city council meeting in 2019. (www.deseret.com)

TIL There was a 1964 tsunami in Alaska, that reached 170 feet above sea level (www.ncei.noaa.gov)

Alaska’s continental shelf and North American plate rose over 9 meters during the earthquake. This sudden displacement of the ocean floor, along with earthquake-induced landslides, generated massive local tsunamis that resulted in 70 percent of the fatalities in southern Alaska. The tsunamis created by the earthquake reached...

TIL- Ben Stiller performed Jesus Christ Superstar on Conan Obrien (www.youtube.com)

TIL the smallest body in the solar system with rings is a small icy rock 160 mi (257.5 km) across. It may have a 3.73 mi (6 km) across moon. (gizmodo.com)

Chariklo is about 160 miles (257.5 kilometers) across and is one of the Centaurs, a group of icy bodies between Jupiter and the ice giants Uranus and Neptune. Chariklo is the largest of these small bodies, making it similar to a large boulder the size of a small boulder as far as superlatives go. Chariklo also boasts two rings,...

TIL Dane Cook holds the record for the longest set at the Laugh Factory at 7 hours and 34 minutes on January 2, 2008. (en.wikipedia.org)

But was any of it actually funny?

TIL the reason doorbells go "ding-dong" is because of Handel's opera The Messiah (en.wikipedia.org)

Long story short, the classic “ding-dong” doorbell chime is the first two notes of the bells played Westminster Palace, which in turn are based on Handel’s opera The Messiah. Read more about it, it’s neat.

TIL most ancient texts were read out loud and it was strange if someone read to themself (lithub.com)

Sumerian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphics, manuscripts in Aramaic, Arabic, and Hebrew, the illuminated Christian Gospels, the Talmud, the Koran—with these forms and collections of writing came the expectation that a person would read them out loud and would, in a manner of speaking, conjure their reality. In his book A...

TIL Sweden was one of the few countries to grant asylum to Vietnam War resisters and deserters. Over 1,000 people were granted asylum status between 1968 and 1973, two thirds of which deserted the war (en.wikipedia.org)

TIL about forced molting where chickens are intentionally starved for 7-14 days to increase their rate of egg production afterwards (en.wikipedia.org)

TIL- Monopoly was stolen from a game called The Landord's Game (en.wikipedia.org)

Robert Baron had Parker Brothers design its own version, Fortune, before negotiation to purchase her patents in case the discussion fell apart or she sold to another potential buyer, Dave Knapp, publisher of Finance.[mwmfg 4] Magie held the patent until 1935, when she sold it to Parker Brothers for $500,[10] equivalent to...