› added 9 years ago

304

TIL up to a quarter of California smog originates in China

Read more newscientist.com

via reddit.com

lEmA TIL Congress added the “Under God” phrase to the Pledge of Allegiance during the Cold War. This symbolized the resistance to communists, who were atheists.
x66Yg TIL King Louis XIV of France covered his telescope’s objective lens with a piece of smoked glass to view the solar eclipse. This method remained popular for a couple hundred years until the 1930s when products such as the Eclipse-o-scope became available
PY7PO TIL New Zealand’s biggest export sector is its agriculture but its farmers, unlike US and EU farmers, receive zero government subsidies.
7VLx TIL when using “perfect strategy” in blackjack, the casino only has a 2% edge over the player in the long run. Due to some players playing with their instincts versus the math behind perfect strategy, the casino can gain 10 times their original advantage.
197W TIL an obscure mathematical principle called Zipf’s law has predicted the size of mega-cities all over the world. And nobody knows why.