› added 5 years ago

333

TIL Pompeii had snack bars that are likened to fast food restaurants. A 2,000-year-old uncovered thermopolium features colorful frescoes - one is of a sea nymph, but the other is of a worker in a snack-bar environment and is thought to be an early form of advertising.

Read more smithsonianmag.com

via reddit.com

d8bjK TIL There is an enzyme called telomerase which reverses the aging process by replacing the junk DNA, which normally degrades over time, that protects coding DNA, and scientists think it is the key to immortality. Species like jellyfish and lobsters are biologically immortal because of this.
kOQ6g TIL despite being filmed in Austria, The Sound of Music was and is still unpopular in the German-speaking world. The third act (the events surrounding the occupation of Austria) was cut by the Munich manager of the studio, before being restored after director Robert Wise intervened.
45YJ TIL Wonder Woman was named a UN Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls in 2016. However, due to her being an overtly sexualized scantily clad “large breasted white woman of impossible proportions” critics dismissed the character as not being a worthy role model for women.
yQ9NX TIL that by transmitting diseases, mosquitoes cause the deaths of more people than any other animal taxon: over 700,000 each year. It has been claimed that almost half of the people who have ever lived have died of mosquito-vectored disease.
m0dM TIL that when told Sholem Aleichem, author of the book on which Fiddler on the Roof is based, “is the Jewish Mark Twain”, Twain replied “please tell him that I am the American Sholem Aleichem”