› added 7 years ago

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TIL a lawyer was hired for a traffic case. Instead of sitting his client at the witness table, he dressed another lawyer to look like the client. When the only witness (a policeman) was asked to point to the defendant in the room he pointed to the fake client. The real defendant was found not guilty

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woxkE TIL the insult "suck eggs" originates from the full phrase "teaching grandmother to suck eggs," referring to a person giving advice to another person in a subject with which the other person is already familiar
mK5P TIL Texas charged a man who knew he was infected with HIV with assault with a deadly weapon after the man committed sexual assault. The court concluded that under Texas’ laws, infected semen could be considered a deadly weapon.
vPy4r TIL: Thanks to poor internal communication at NASA, information about a spacesuit water leak wasn't properly communicated. Later, Astronaut Luca Parmitano almost drowned on a July, 2013 ISS space walk, his helmet filling with several liters of water before they could get him back inside.
rE0d TIL that there is a push to replace the skull and crossbones as the international symbol for poison. Because of the popularity of pirates, many children no longer see the symbol as a warning. A proposed alternative is “Mr. Yuk”.
wLOwW TIL a study shows that smokers have been found to be more successful at quitting smoking when they go "cold turkey" (sudden abstinence), as opposed to gradually cutting back.