› added 8 years ago

381

TIL an octopus named Otto caused an aquarium power outage by climbing to the edge of his tank and shooting a jet of water at a bright light that was annoying him. He’s also been seen juggling hermit crabs, throwing rocks at the glass and re-arranging his tank surroundings.

Read more wikipedia.org

via ift.tt

XEWL8 TIL of a 2011 study that analyzed the decisions made by a panel of judges who spent several days reviewing parole applications. It turned out that the likelihood of a prisoner getting parole was mostly determined by how hungry the judges were at different times in the day.
yVvjJ TIL The specific wording "the pen is mightier than the sword" was first used by author Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839, the same guy whose intro sentence “It was a dark and stormy night.” inspired a contest for the worst opening sentence for a novel.
788DX TIL In 1974 at a Canadian army training base in Quebec, cadets were being trained to handle discarded explosives. A cadet asked one of the instructors if he could pull the pin on the grenade, and the instructor told him it was safe. It exploded, killing 6 cadets and injuring 65 others.
4rPN TIL when Google was losing a lot of female employees because they weren’t coming back to work after giving birth, Google lengthened maternity leave to 5 months from 3, and changed it from partial pay to full pay, and the amount of women who didn’t come back after maternity leave dropped by 50%.
dPor TIL that the last words of President James K. Polk, to his wife, were: “I love you Sarah. For all eternity, I love you.”