› added 8 years ago

665

TIL Americans look at mouths for emotional cues while Japanese look to the eyes, which explains why USA smileys look like :) and Japanese smileys look like (^_^)

Read more livescience.com

via ift.tt

Z8jAD TIL Roger Cotes, a young astronomy professor at Cambridge, forced Newton to confront his mistakes in his work, Principia, and corrected many of them for him. Cotes bombarded Newton with letters for years, repeatedly challenging his experimental results as well as his theoretical calculations
KA79 TIL that ‘the present’ is defined in archaeology as any time after January 1st, 1950, because nuclear testing has altered isotopes in the atmosphere to the point that it isn’t possible to carbon date anything more recent.
d8l6Z TIL: Potato bugs are legitimately called "Jerusalem Crickets" but despite their common names, these insects are neither true crickets nor true bugs, nor are they native to Jerusalem.
o0EE TIL: Every fig you’ve ever eaten was fertilized by a special wasp which probably died inside it (and you ate it)
R5dR6 TIL Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) was noted for her piety. “While tending to a woman with cancerous breast sores, she was disgusted. Intending to overcome that disgust, she gathered the sore pus into a ladle and drank it.”