› added 6 years ago

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TIL that 12,000 bears are farmed for their bile in Asia which is used in traditional Chinese medicine and generates $2bn per year. Farming always involves surgery on the bears to insert a catheter or to cut a hole through the abdomen by which the bile leaks. Bear bile has no medicinal effect.

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Wk4A4 TIL Archimedes's cattle problem, a 2 millenium-old poem containing an arithmetical problem which involves computing the number of cattle the sun god's herd, was discovered in 1773. It took 107 years for it to be solved. The answer was 7.76x10^206544, more cattle than could fit in the universe.
rN76W TIL Michael Douglas at first refused to screen test with Sharon Stone as Catherine Tramell in the film Basic Instinct (1992), but agreed to do so after 12 other actresses turned down the part. He was initially upset the relatively unknown Stone was cast, yet later said "She was perfect for the role"
PYgXV TIL inmates in Brazilian APAC prisons can reduce their sentence by 3 days per book they read and write a report on... A part of a larger program that has reduced recitivism from 70% to as low as 7% in these prisons.
0dbL TIL that Douglas Adams was the first person in Europe to buy a Mac, the second was Stephen Fry.
wLx48 TIL that modern F1 race cars have large wooden board attached under them to make sure the cars do not skid on the race track more than allowed. The board is measured before and after the race, and driver can get disqualified if the board gets too thin.