› added 9 years ago

78

TIL toy manufacturer Mattel sued MCA Records over Aqua’s 1997 hit “Barbie Girl”. After ruling the lawsuit (and MCA’s countersuit) be dismissed due to parody protection under the 1st amendment, the judge concluded his ruling by stating: “The parties are advised to chill.”

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

QNDbk TIL: There are "sniffer bees" that can be trained to sniff out various substances, including explosives, illegal drugs, and diseases in humans. Their sense of smell is so acute, they can match sniffer dogs in detection skills. However, each bee can only be trained to recognize one specific scent.
WkpGN TIL: George Lucas traded 2.5% of "Star Wars" ticket sales with Steven Spielberg for 2.5 % of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" sales. Lucas did this because he was not sure that Star Wars would be profitable. Spielberg ended up making $40 Million from Star Wars.
j4kp TIL that Mark Haub, a professor at Kansas State University, went on a “convenience store” diet which mainly consisted of Twinkies, Oreos, and Doritos to demonstrate that counting calories is what matters most in weight loss, not the nutritional value in food. He lost 27 pounds in only two months.
yYZJ TIL that over 20 percent of all calories collectively consumed by humanity are from a single food… rice
X0k18 TIL Father Alec Reid, a Catholic priest who secretly worked to end decades of bloodshed in Northern Ireland between 1960s-1998, unsuccessfully tried to stop two British soldiers (Protestant side) from being shot by the IRA, while carrying crucial secret letter outlining peace negotiations.