› added 10 years ago

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TIL that there is evidence to suggest that the reason Asian cultures are typically more skilled at maths than non-Asian cultures is not due to intelligence, but to the nature of their languages.

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w947 TIL: In 2000, for the sole purpose of trolling the MPAA, a programmer created a mostly useless, legal program that shared a name with the recently released, illegal program for decrypting DVD video, DeCSS.
aw6Ao TIL there is a species of butterfly that feeds only on specific plant (Artemisia Vulgaris), which happens to like soil above mass graves. Forensic teams followed blue butterflies to help them uncover the mass grave sites.
R57v1 TIL Carl’s Drive-In Barbecue became Carl’s Jr. when the owner opened a smaller version of the restaurant geared to faster service, which eventually outsold and replaced the original.
0wWep TIL there exists a psychological phenomenon in which perfectly sane people, with no desire to die, find themselves faced with a steep cliff and experience a strong desire to leap. This phenomenon is so common, in fact, that the French have a term for it: L’appel du Vide – Call of the Void.
d8JJ7 TIL The term "Patient Zero" was actually “Patient O” as in the letter O, meaning that the person was from “outside” California. The ambiguous circular symbol on a chart was later read as a zero and the term became widely used.