› added 10 years ago

209

TIL the majority of states have official “ancient emblems"—several of which are fossils. An effort by an 8-year-old girl to give South Carolina its own official state fossil was thwarted however, because some lawmakers object to officially recognizing the woolly mammoth fossil on religious grounds.

Read more livescience.com

via reddit.com

9YED7 TIL many organ donation recipients report new traits and tendencies (such as food cravings) that they share with their donor.
yV5av TIL Women have been legally allowed to go topless in public in New York City since 1992
gMeVA TIL aquariums aren't allowed to pay to get animals from other aquariums as it encourages poaching. So there is a barter system in place where they swap animals. A New England aquarium traded a dozen penguins for 800 mackerel and their basic unit of trade is the jellyfish
QwEM TIL the Nintendo character Kirby was named after John Kirby, a lawyer who successfully defended Nintendo when Universal sued them for stealing the idea of Donkey Kong from the King Kong franchise
gM0E9 TIL That US Emergency MRE's underwent a color change in 2001, due to some instances where people would mistaken them as (similar looking) cluster bombs on the ground.