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TIL: Alice Crook, a PhD student, analyzed Presbyterian records from 62,456 children born in Scotland between 1680 and 1839. She found middle names rare until about 1780 when their popularity began to rise dramatically—almost 99% of children in her sample who had middle names were born after 1780.

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bdbj TIL a think tank at Oxford University believes that the prison industry may begin exploring psychoactive drugs that elongate the perception of time, either reducing actual incarceration times or making sentences for heinous crimes feel like an eternity.
rNKOe TIL Digesting Duck was an automaton unveiled by Jacques de Vaucanson on 30 May 1764. The duck was made to fake eating and digestion but Vaucanson wished for a real digesting machine. In 2002 Wim Delvoye revealed his "Cloaca Machine" which digested food; the excrement was sold to art collectors.
69g8X TIL that Cholesterol is important for the human body and 80% of it is made by the Liver.
V6Em TIL in 1944 Nazi scientists developed an experimental drug named “D-IX” which could force an equipment laden soldier to march 88.5 km without rest. They had plans to supply these pills to all German troops but war ended before mass production.
LdNZ TIL that on 18 May 1990, Jim Swire, who’s daughter died in the Lockerbie bombing, took a fake bomb on board a British Airways from London Heathrow to New York JFK and then on a flight from New York JFK to Boston to show that airline security had not improved.