› added 10 years ago

167

TIL potatoes absorb Wi-Fi signals the same way people do, and are used to test/improve internet signals on airplanes.

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lodL1 TIL researches at Uni. of Oklahoma injected almost 300 MG of LSD into a male Indian elephant in 1967. Within 5 minutes he collapsed; slightly under two hours later he was dead.
6EjBW TIL upon turning 30, you were eligible to run for "Archon" in Ancient Greece which was the highest government office. Athenians also employed "ostracism" where they would vote to banish any politician for a period for 10 years.
d87P8 TIL the WWE is staged - completely scripted
5Ydnn TIL that a "macaroni", as mentioned in Yankee Doodle, refers to a 1700s trend wherein some men would dress up in ridiculously over the top clothing and speak in a gender-ambiguous manner. The name came from young men who had toured Italy referring to fashionable things as "very macaroni".
0dw1R TIL about the Common Cold Research Unit in the UK, which existed from 1946-1989, and whose only successfully-developed treatment was zinc lozenges (in 1987)