› added 9 years ago

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TIL that “The Goldwater Rule” forbids psychiatrists from offering opinions on somebody s/he hasn’t interviewed. It was created in response to Barry Goldwater suing Fact Magazine for $75K after publishing “1189 Psychiatrists Think Goldwater is Pyschologically Unfit to be President” in 1964.

9YKKD TIL a sense of humor belongs to the set of strengths positive psychologists call transcendence; together they help us forge connections to the world and provide meaning to life. Appreciation of humor correlates with other strengths, too, such as wisdom and love of learning.
awY7M TIL that panic buying during a pandemic is not new; during the Black Plague a physician in Vienna stated, ‘When the plague broke out, people gorged themselves with such amounts of angelica root that later nobody was able to purchase any, not even for considerable sums of money’.
8j4K TIL that John Quincy Adams, the 6th US President, took the presidential oath of office not after placing his hand on a Bible but upon a book of law.
lxMN TIL when you have those “how’d I get here” moments when driving, it’s the basal ganglia that has taken control. A very primal part of the brain that controls voluntary but barely conscious actions.
WkLg8 TIL that a suicide bombers plan to blow herself up on New Year’s Eve was thwarted by a spam “Happy New Year” text message from her cell phone provider which prematurely detonated her explosive in her safe house.