› added 3 weeks ago

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Today I learned that Popeye’s famous spinach-fueled strength came from a chemist’s typo: - In 1870, German scientist Erich von Wolf accidentally wrote that spinach had 35mg of iron per 100g (instead of 3.5mg) due to a misplaced decimal point. - The error went uncorrected until 1937 (67 Years)

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D5Yv TIL Pandas were carnivorous but they inexplicably lost their appetite for meat during evolution
R99a TIL when Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing faced a naked schizophrenic woman rocking silently to and fro in a padded cell, he took off his own clothes and sat next to her, rocking to the same rhythm until she spoke for the first time in months.
EVVV TIL that the EPA used to chase commercial jets down the runway with a heavily modified Plymouth originally meant for NASCAR competition. The car stayed in the jet wash the entire time. At $25,000, they determined this to be the cheapest way of collecting emissions data for airliners
PooO TIL the US stock of coral snake antivenom technically expired nine years ago, and the FDA has been moving up the expiration date every year through this April.
4Xm85 TIL that a ballerina was diagnosed with a detached retina in 1941 and had eye surgery. She had bed rest for 3 months, but still moved her feet. The op failed, as did another. For her third, she had a year’s bed rest. Her husband sat with her every day, using their fingers to teach her ballet.