› added 5 years ago

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TIL of "Daughter from California syndrome", a phrase used in the medical profession to describe situation in which a long-absent family member arrives while a patient is dying to demand inappropriately aggressive care.

wJbY TIL In 1669, King Louis XIV banned the use of pointed dinner knives to discourage violent stabbing and tooth-picking at the dinner table, which eventually lead to the popularity of the modern butter knife.
6E7kY TIL Henry Ford bought an area of Brazilian rainforest the size of Connecticut to build 'Fordlandia', the greatest rubber plantation known to man, where alcohol, women and football were banned. It produced almost no rubber, immediately descended into rioting and disease, and was abandoned
p8Z5N TIL a long lost 1926 Japanese silent horror film was rediscovered 45 years later, when its director found a print in his own storehouse in 1971. Nearly a third of it is still missing.
QMyM TIL there is a parasite that can only reproduce inside the stomach of cats. When it’s excreted in feces and eaten by a rat, the parasite rewires the rat’s brain to be attracted to cats. This same effect can occur in humans and is thought to be a reason behind the stereotypical crazy cat person.
gr6a8 TIL that all of China uses one time zone. On July 1, sunrise in the country’s east is at 3:05 am and sunset in the country’s west is at 10:26 pm. On Jamuary 1, sunrise in the west is at 10:16 am and sunset in the east is at 3:18 pm.