› added 10 years ago

1579

TIL that the first pregnancy tests on record were in Ancient Egypt. Women would pee on a field of wheat and barley. If the wheat sprouted, it was going to be a girl. If the barley sprouted, it was going to be a boy. If neither sprouted, the woman wasn’t pregnant.

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LQdJZ TIL that it can rain diamonds on Neptune, Uranus, and Saturn due to the extreme atmospheric pressures, crystallizing carbon atoms into diamonds. Researchers have recreated these conditions in labs to prove it's possible on Neptune and Uranus and speculate Saturn could see as much as 2.2M.
LljZ TIL that an Australian man was declared dead for 14 minutes. He was revived and after leaving hospital he bought a lottery ticket and won a $27K car. While filming a news piece on his “good luck” be bought a lotter ticket to reenact the car win and he THEN won a $250K jackpot. Lucky much?
awm9o TIL Congress had an Office of Technology Assessment to provide members and committees with objective and authoritative analysis of the complex scientific and technical issues of the day, but was defunded in 1995
8a7vL TIL Pete Conrad (3rd Man on Moon) to prove a journalist wrong who thought the government told the astronauts what to say while on the moon bet her $500 dollars and said, "Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me." According to him, he never got that $500.
KYVJB TIL that when Pedro Rodriguez won the 1967 South African Grand Prix, the organizers did not have the Mexican anthem, and instead played the Mexican hat dance.