› added 5 years ago

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TIL almost all medicines are not vegan, especially birthcontrol. From shellac to lactose to lanolin to bone meal, almost all over the counter and prescription medicines contain some form of animal byproduct as binding or delivery agents.

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VMQd0 TIL that only the outer layer of tree trunks are alive. The center of the trunk is technically dead but it will not decay or lose strength while the outer layers are intact. A piece of the dead core 12" long and 1" by 2" in cross section set vertically can support a weight of twenty tons.
VMv4Q TIL that Henry Ford probably never said "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses" - but his tone-deafness to customers' needs in the 1920s, when GM was producing numerous models to Ford's single Model T, caused Ford's market share to drop from 70% to 15% in 6 years
LkPJQ TIL that 20th Century Fox sued Universal Studios in 1978, claiming that Battlestar Galactica used 34 distinct ideas stolen from Star Wars. Universal sued Fox, claiming that Star Wars took ideas from Buck Rogers and Silent Running. The case lasted 5 years before the studios settled out of court.
l71Er TIL Trinity College Dublin's oldest PhD graduated at 84 with her thesis "Harry Potter and the Unconscious Dimension" She wondered, why are the Harry Potter books, which are written for children, so popular with adults?
RKP1 TIL that a duel between three people is actually called a truel.