› added 10 years ago

198

TIL in 1992 thousands of plastic yellow ducks broke free from a cargo ship on the Pacific. They floated halfway around the world for years and were used to study ocean currents.

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8eNeX TIL: You can close a chrome tab by middle clicking on it!
JY5km TIL there's a gene, creatively named Indy, short for "I'm Not Dead Yet", in fruit flies, owing to the phenomenon where some of it's mutations almost double the lifespan of said host.
x6Ngw TIL that in 1959, an eccentric musician named John Cage composed a piece titled "4'33"," which consists of four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence. Just pure silence. No music.
Ga4g TIL: Stress makes people perform badly because it takes up space in the ‘working memory’ making less memory available for performing the task at hand
rRB5o TIL with a record of 46-2 Marvin Hagler could not get a title fight. His manager pleaded with Senator Ted Kennedy. Kennedy called boxing promotor Bob Arum and threatened an investigation. Arum was a tax attorney for the Justice Dept. during JFK's administration and guaranteed the fight.