› added 4 years ago

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TIL flea circuses used actual fleas, and one reason they died out is because human hygiene improved so circuses ran out of performers.

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via reddit.com

gMWkA TIL that 12,000 bears are farmed for their bile in Asia which is used in traditional Chinese medicine and generates $2bn per year. Farming always involves surgery on the bears to insert a catheter or to cut a hole through the abdomen by which the bile leaks. Bear bile has no medicinal effect.
epdg TIL Bayer sold millions of $ of blood-clotting medicine for hemophiliacs with a high risk of transmitting AIDS to Asia & Latin America in the mid-80s, while selling safer product in the West.
OokXX TIL that in the 70s, Stephen King published several books under a pseudonym, partly to test whether his fame was due to luck or talent: “Thinner did 28,000 copies when Bachman was the author . . . 280,000 when Steve King became the author . . . might tell you something, huh?
BrK9b TIL that in Buddhism, one "Aeon" is the amount of time it takes to completely erode a huge rock 16x16x16 miles in size, by brushing it with a silk cloth once a century.
w7YP TIL that the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 allows the President to “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens” who “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States”