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TIL the unit bel was named in honor of Alexander Graham Bell. The bel is seldom used, as the decibel was the proposed working unit.

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VMVn4 TIL Avocado, bay and cinnamon all belong to the the laurel family of flowering plants. Lauraceae comprises of about 2850 known species in about 45 genera worldwide. They occur mainly in warm temperate and tropical regions, especially Southeast Asia and South America.
mE7o TIL a chimp in a Swedish zoo collected round disks of concrete, stockpiled them, and saved them until he could throw them at visitors. “Nothing like it has as yet been reported from the wild, nor from any captive chimpanzees”
ebpD TIL that a physicist was threatened with 80 years in prison for “sharing U.S secretes” with China. It was later found that he had permission to share the info, and had even been asked by the National Science Foundation to form a coalition with other Chinese scientists.
6ErVQ TIL at the start of the 2008 crash, the second Wall Street firm to reduce its position in mortgage-backed securities was Lehman Brothers Inc, which went bankrupt soon after. The first firm was Goldman Sachs, who moved early at the urging of two employees as dramatized in the 2011 film "Margin Call".
nWkmd TIL that in 1976 before going to a show Keith Richards received news that his three month old son had died from SIDS; he made the choice to perform that night regardless but was criticized for doing so. He later stated that if he hadn't done the show that night he would probably have shot himself.