Post * 6ExjJ — Curious Curator

› added 5 years ago

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TIL the world's first implantable pacemaker patient, Arne Larsson, went on to receive 26 different pacemakers during his lifetime. He died in 2001, at the age of 86, outliving the inventor as well as the surgeon.

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9wDop TIL about ELIZA, a 1960s chatbot created by MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum that simulated a psychotherapist. It was so convincing that some users, including Weizenbaum's secretary, became emotionally attached to it. In 2023, ELIZA even outperformed GPT-3.5 in a Turing test study.

5VaMp TIL for over 500 years, Chinese States and Kingdoms fought over the Unification of the Realm. With Qin Shi Huang unifying it for 15 yrs. In the end, it was a Peasant-Nobody with his newly created Han Kingdom who defeated Qin Dynasty and all ancient Kingdoms to create an Empire which lasted 406 years

WkAoN TIL When Picasso died at the age of 91, he left more than 45,000 works. In 1980 the Picasso estate was appraised at $250 million, but experts have said the true value was actually in the billions. Picasso did not leave a will, the division of his holdings took six years among seven heirs

69BwJ TIl that in Ancient Rome a newborn would be laid on the ground and checked for any defects. Then pater familias would decide whether the child would be raised or not. Unwanted children would be given away, left to die or outright killed (it was legal to kill children until the 4th century AD)

VMYWB TIL that after the last bucardo - a wild goat species - died, scientists brought a clone to life, making the bucardo the first species to become de-extinct. The clone died after seven minutes, also making it the first species to go extinct twice.