› added 5 years ago

41

TIL Donald Goerke was tasked with developing a canned pasta that would appeal to children. His team reportedly considered pasta in the shapes of baseballs, cowboys, spacemen and stars before settling on the "O" shape. He became known as "The Daddy-O of SpaghettiOs."

ADNWa The human brain looks like a big, pinkish-gray, wrinkly walnut. There are so many folds in it that, if it could be unfolded, it could be a small tablecloth. Pinkish-gray might not match your decor, but it would be about the right size! This "tablecloth" is made up of the cerebral cortex and is the wrinkly outside layer of your brain. All those folds are responsible for abstract thought, language, and memory. Scientists believe the wrinkles exist as a way to increase the surface area of the cortex, allowing for increased brainpower in a smaller space. In this week’s Today I Learned, neuroscientist and National Geographic Emerging Explorer Steve Ramirez shares some of his smarts on how your cortex is different from your pet hamster’s.
rNMo TIL that the first male to win the tennis Career Golden Slam, Andre Agassi (winning all four Grand Slam tournaments and the Olympic gold), is married to the first female tennis player, Steffi Graf, to do the same.
wLZvE TIL that in 1999, 40 million people suddenly lost power in the Philippines, igniting fears of a possible military coup, only to find out that the cooling pipes of one power grid had sucked up 50 dump truck’s worth of jellyfish which caused the outage.
mDgv TIL hundreds of schools collapsed during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, killing more than 5000 students. Instead of conducting investigations into the companies responsible, the government threatened and arrested the griefing parents protesting against the death of their children
e6Kk TIL: A “Blue Moon” does Not refer to the second full moon of a month, but the fourth full moon of a season. The common misconception became popular in the 1940s.