› added 12 years ago

138

TIL “ [Siberian] Huskies will obey if required to, but their natural tendency is to be cooperative rather than obedient, and they prefer to be companions rather than mere pets.”

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bnN4 TIL that in the 60s, the US military secretly sprayed (possibly radioactive) experimental chemicals, like zinc cadmium, on thousands of residents of poor neighborhoods in St. Louis, without their knowledge or consent, to see what would happen
Rvna TIL no one knows what Jesus looked like; “The artistic depictions down the ages have total and complete variation, which indicates that nobody did a portrait of Jesus or wrote down a description, it’s all been forgotten.”
mx6XR TIL about Massopora, a fungus which infects 13 and 17 year cycle cicadas. It can dissolve the gonads of males, cause their butts to fall off, turning them into "flying zombie salt shakers", and can also change the behavior of some males to make them trick other males into trying to breed with them.
QJ8y6 TIL that Geoffrey Tandy, a cryptogamist (algae specialist) who was mistakenly hired by Bletchley Park, significantly contributed to breaking the Enigma cipher, utilising his expertise to preserve otherwise unsalvageable codebooks from a torpedoed U-boat
JYGpV TIL of "Sluggish Schizophrenia," used in the Soviet Union to describe a form of schizophrenia characterized by a slowly progressive course. It was often diagnosed in those who exhibited no symptoms of disorders; this would deprive people of their credibility and was used against political dissidents