› added 1 month ago

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TIL in 1975, Stephen Hawking wagered to cosmologist Kip Thorne a subscription to Penthouse (an adult magazine) that Cygnus X-1 would not turn out to be a black hole. Hawking lost the bet but was okay with it because if he had won, much of his research would've been proven wrong.

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vbk8 TIL: “The Indian government requires retailers to source 30 percent from small suppliers”; this is one of the reasons Walmart is having difficulty expanding in India.
Geb4 TIL The Ancient Greek tradition of putting two coins in the eyes of the dead was not true. They only put one in the mouth, contrary to popular etiology
05nN TIL that to punish tree thieves who cut down trees illegally, some cities spray trees with fox urine around Christmas time. It freezes on them and is odorless outdoors, but would stink up your whole house if brought indoors; the smell is “eye-watering.”
Z8KvR TIL about the cookiecutter shark. The name refers to its feeding habit of gouging round plugs, as if cut with a cookie cutter, out of larger animals. Marks made by cookiecutter sharks have been found on a wide variety of marine life, as well as on submarines, undersea cables, and even human bodies!
Wk8DN TIL a woman named Frances Perkins was outside the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory during the fire and saw dozens of people jump to their deaths due to unsafe work conditions. She went on to become the first female Secretary of Labor and founded the Factory Investigating Commission to improve work safety