› added 8 years ago

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TIL the Supreme Court has ruled police have no legal duty to enforce restraining orders, after police failed to act on the restraining order of a mother whose 3 children were later murdered by her ex-husband.

mxmoO TIL Female brown trout will fake 'orgasms' when courting with inferior males. She'll give all the right visual cues as if about to release eggs for fertilisation, but doesn't; the male will frantically ejaculate, not notice he's been duped, and swim away.
WkQa4 TIL that the Count in Sesame Street does not count all the time to teach children numbers! In folklore, vampires had arithmomania, or an obsession with numbers. This derives from the old superstition that throwing poppy seeds on the ground stopped vampires because they had to count them all first.
b6RKj TIL: People accused of being witches during the witch trials in colonial New England weren't' burned at stake, they were hanged. One man who was accused of Witchcraft died by pressed to death by heavy stones, another was jailed.
rjLd TIL that a 2005 research by the University of Miami on lethal injections in the U.S. found that the post mortem blood concentration of anaesthetic (Sodium thiopental) in 43 out of 49 executed inmates were lower than that required for surgery. 21 inmates had concentrations consistent with awareness.
mxAQY TIL Pungents are small bottles used to carry smelling salts and other odorous things. Dating back to at least the 19th century, pungents were often decorated to look like seahorses and dolphins, among other things.