b6xgN TIL the American flag sometimes appears “backwards” - such as on the starboard side of spacecraft or the right shoulder of military uniforms - because U.S. Flag Code requires it to always appear as if moving forward.
QNBkp TIL that Greg Lake of ELP wrote "Lucky Man" when he was just 12 years old.
AN5QB Today I learned the first internet router called IMP 1 was the size of a phonebooth.
yVaka TIL there’s a deep-sea worm called Swima bombiviridis or green bomber worm that escapes predators by throwing glowing “bombs.”
m1eNM TIL that an accent called diaeresis is sometimes used in English. It looks like two dots over a letter and is written in alternative spellings of certain words, e.g. "naïve" instead of "naive".
DQWYJ TIL That some people can't wink, or can only wink one eye but not the other.
vPkyD TIL Poodles used to be bred for hunting and working
J1Vam TIL In June 1982, Roberto Calvi, nicknamed God's Banker, was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in London. Although he had over $14,000 in cash and bricks found in his pockets his death was deemed a suicide. His strange death started the financial scandal at Banco Ambrosiano and the Vatican.
pYlnO TIL in latter seasons of the 1987 animated TV series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Michelangelo's nunchaku were replaced with a grappling hook called the "Turtle Line" due to censorship in Europe. Several European countries had banned nunchaku due to violence involving people armed with the weapon.
GA675 TIL about the Lump-Of-Labor Fallacy, which is the misconception that there is a finite amount of work to be done in an economy which can be distributed to create more or fewer jobs.
16EpD TIL that quantum field theory predicts the energy density of empty space to be about 10⁸ GeV⁴. In 2015 it was measured to actually be about 2.5 × 10⁻⁴⁷ GeV⁴, which is smaller than predicted by 1 octodecillion percent. This has been called "the worst theoretical prediction in the history of physics".
oR84A TIL that storing your headphones with a few silica gel packets in the case can stop moisture from slowly breaking down the ear cups, adding years to their life. silica pulls humidity out of the air so sweat and dampness don’t stay trapped inside your pads