› added 9 years ago

199

TIL of James Price, an 18th century chemist/alchemist who claimed to be able to turn mercury into gold. When challenged to perform the conversion for a second time in front of credible witnesses, he instead committed suicide by drinking cyanide.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

eDJ6 TIL that hidden deep within Windows Excel 95 is a game called Hall of Tortured Souls.
XE5jD TIL once every 10,000 years, a black hole in a galaxy reveals itself by ripping apart a passing star. These tidal disruption events have given astronomers a new way to map the hidden cosmos.
worZE TIL During sleep, brain waves help flush waste out of the brain. Individual nerve cells coordinate to produce rhythmic waves that propel fluid through dense brain tissue, washing the tissue in the process
66Dl TIL Orville Redenbacher paid an advertising company $13,000 in 1970 to come up with a name for his popcorn company. Their advice was to call it “Orville Redenbacher”
D1Axv TIL that the alien in Alien was played by a Nigerian man named Bolaji Badejo. He died of sickle cell anemia in 1992, at the age of 39.