› added 10 years ago

193

TIL it gets too hot, not too cold, on the International Space Station

Read more science.nasa.gov

via reddit.com

xVbD1 TIL the potato was popularized in France largely by one man who placed guards around his potato field and instructed them to "accept any and all bribes from civilians".
pYyvN TIL that Euclid's Parallel Postulate had no mention of parallel lines. Although parallel lines exist as a consequence of the postulate, the postulate actually describes how the opposite case arises: how lines intersect. Parallel lines are the negative case of the postulate: lines that never meet.
BgZxk TIL sportswriter Henry Chadwick (b. 1824), the "Father of Baseball" is credited with creating "K" as the designation for a strikeout. K is the middle sound of the word "strikeout", and other potential letters (S, T, R, I) already had meanings in baseball.
JYl1v TIL French author Antoine Saint-Exupery actually wrote The Little Prince in Long Island, NY after fleeing France during the German Occupation in 1940. There was also a brief reference to New York in the original transcript that ended up getting cut.
mx4EO TIL that most of the fish we eat die by asphyxiation. "Ike Jime" is a Japanese humane technique to kill & preserver the fish’s flavor, texture & also removes the nasty tastes caused by suffocation, like adrenaline, lactic-acid, & the cortisol that spikes in the blood.