› added 6 years ago

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TIL: The "Fearless Girl" statue that's famous for "standing up to the Bull on Wallstreet" was commissioned by an investments firm, State Street Global Advisors, which holds $2.8 trillion in assets. The statue was to advertise a new investment fund they were offering.

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MeAJW TIL that the common practice to produce antivenom comes from horses. They are given very low doses of snake venom over long periods of time. Eventually the blood is taken from the animal, and the antibodies are purified out. The antibodies inside that blood then bind and neutralise the venom.
OWrY TIL that the longest prison sentence ever received was 141,078 years, handed out to Thai national Chamoy Thipyaso for her part in a Ponzi scheme that defrauded 16,000 investors.
QN0Ad TIL that the world's quietest room, an anechoic chamber located at Orfield Laboratories in Minnesota, can drive people to the point of madness. The room is so quiet people can hear their own blood flowing and even the sound of their organs functioning, which can be disorienting and unsettling.
54j8 TIL In 2013 a group of Neo Nazis tried to create a compound near a small town in North Dakota. Several local Native American grandmothers raided one of the Neo Nazi rallies and stole their Nazi flag, then burned it.
e0pn6 TIL in 1982, a man named Larry Walters attached 45 helium-filled balloons to a lawn chair and took flight to a height of 16,000 feet. He did so because he was denied entry in the US Air Force due to poor eyesight.