› added 10 years ago

317

TIL the ‘Tetris Effect’, where a person devoting a large amount of time to a particular pattern-based activity will start unconsciously thinking and dreaming about it

Read more scientificamerican.com

via reddit.com

QNaXE TIL of Isaac Rice, a 1800s music teacher turned businessman who made electric cars & submarines and invented his own chess opening called the Rice Gambit. He loved it so much that he formed a Rice Gambit Association where he sponsored top players to play in tournaments only using his opening.
M7yv8 TIL about the death of Mary Jane Barker. She was a 4-year-old who disappeared alongside her friend Maria Freitta's dog in February 1957. In March, Maria found her corpse alongside the still-alive dog in a closet in a new vacant house near the Freittas' house.
rmxy TIL that in 1979, a number of people called in sick with a case of “being homosexual,” in protest of homosexuality being classified as an illness. Within a few months, Sweden joined the few other countries in the world at the time to de-classify homosexuality as an illness.
LQ60m TIL some states have "Dead red" laws, which, if you're on a motorcycle or moped that is too light or not large enough to trip the sensor that changes the light from red to green, you're legally allowed to run the red light after waiting a reasonable amount of time.
KOd96 TIL a child, Bobby Dunbar, disappeared at age 4, then was "found" in another state with different parents. Investigators took the child, returning him to the Dunbars. Years later, DNA revealed it was the wrong kid.