› added 9 years ago

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TIL In the early 1900s, a group of U.S. government scientists started a private dinner club, in which they only ate poisonous food. They documented their illnesses in order to convince Congress to pass food safety laws. They were called “The Poison Squad.”

W76DL TIL that in Tok Pisin, the English-based creole language spoken by millions in Papua New Guinea, the vocabularly is often unrecognizably shifted in meaning from English, for example: "as ples" [ass place -> place of origin], "maus gras" [mouth grass -> moustache], or "belhat" [belly hot -> angry]
yQGVp TIL that the “Tetris Effect” occurs when you focus so much on something— such as a video game— that you start to see it in real life and during sleep
JYy98 TIL insufficient sleep has an impact on total daily energy expenditure, food intake, & weight gain. Increased food intake during insufficient sleep is a physiological adaptation to provide energy needed to sustain additional wakefulness;
l70MN TIL about Peter Fossett, a man born into slavery at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. He later bought his freedom and became a conductor on the underground railroad, a military officer, and a pastor. His wife, Sarah, filed a lawsuit in 1860 which desegregated the streetcars in Cincinnati.
8a8nK TIL that a plane carrying 6,000 pounds of pot crashed in Yosemite National Park. Climbers in Yosemite Valley heard news of the crash and sparked a miniature gold rush with up to 20 people searching the frozen crash site. Much of the weed was salvaged, smoked, or sold before park rangers caught on.