› added 12 years ago

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TIL: That Japan is Obsessed with Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas. Some people even order months in advance to avoid lines.

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dDRWj TIL until the mid-1990s the Italian-American mafia controlled trash collection in New York City, fixing prices by extorting or murdering competitors or requiring them to join the price-fixing cartel. After an undercover operation convicted the leaders, trash collection costs dropped by $600 million.
rRpbw TIL: "The Champ" is a jigsaw puzzle that has 44 pieces that can be assembled 32 different ways with only one of them being correct.
b68P9 TIL the shrimp industry removes the eyes of female shrimp to increase reproduction, calling it "eyestalk ablation."
X07oj TIL the most widely consumed alcoholic spirit in the world is baijiu, a Chinese liquor. In 2018, 10.8 billion liters were sold — more than whisky, vodka, gin, rum, and tequila combined.
Y7eKr TIL that participants in a study, when controlling a robot by joystick, were unable to create any self-tickling sensation. This suggests that tickling depends on surprise/a lack of expectation, and that the brain regulates/blocks the sensation when it can anticipate it.