› added 7 years ago

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TIL in 1954, the Peanuts character "Pig-Pen" made his debut in a strip directly parodying Piggy from Lord of the Flies. He declares, "I haven't got a name ... people just call me things ... real insulting things".

Oo9KY TIL a moth species has evolved to live in sloth fur. The moths use sloth dung to incubate their eggs and when they hatch, the moths fly back into a sloth's fur, completing the cycle. When the moths die, their corpses fertilize moss growing in the sloth's fur, which provide camouflage and...nutrition
7rnAp TIL there are gloves that teach untrained musicians to play the piano in an hour. While wearing, the gloves vibrate in ways that stimulate certain movements to condition a user's hand for a specific task. These vibrations help the brain soak up knowledge even if the wearer isn't paying attention.
5VKbn TIL Miracle-Gro, a water-soluble fertilizer, was developed after Horace Hagedorn met nurseryman Otto Stern and learned of Stern's troubles shipping plants in 1944. They hired O. Wesley Davidson, a Rutgers University professor, to develop the fertilizer.
oB19R TIL Former Japanese Emperor Akihito is a well-versed marine biologist, focusing studies on ichthyology, or fish studies. Aside from his scientific papers on the Japanese Journal of Ichthyology, he has also published articles on the history of science from the Edo and Meiji eras.
WkrQo TIL The legal battles over the "Monkey Selfie" ruined the photographers life to the point of making him drop photography to find work as a dog walker.