› added 4 months ago

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TIL that Abraham Lincoln suffered from Major Depressive Disorder, was put on suicide watch multiple times, and was almost commited to a mental instituion.

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jpQQ TIL: Humans are so similar in body structure/genome to baby chimps that scientists now believe humans lost a receptor protein that allowed us to transition from juvenile chimps to adult chimps, leaving us healthier & With larger brain cavities, ultimately allowing us to rise as the superior genus.
16oNP TIL that kelp isn’t actually a plant, it’s part of a fourth group of organisms called protists.
VMOQp TIL in 1930, George Stathakis, went over Niagara falls in a barrel. Upon impact, the barrel was stuck behind a curtain of water and could not be recovered for 18 hours. Stathakis took the plunge with his pet turtle, which was said to be around 150 years old. The turtle survived the ordeal.
xykB TIL the ‘Type A and Type B personalities’ were conceived from studies that sought to establish a link between proactive personalities and heart disease. Tobacco companies funded the studies & used them to suggest cigarettes only seemed to cause heart disease because smokers were such high achievers
R7n7l TIL that pessimism is one of the key symptoms of depression, and depressed people are more pessimistic when predicting the future than nondepressed people, even when they are given the exact same information with which to make their predictions.