Post * xVwbb — Curious Curator

› added 4 years ago

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TIL Conservation efforts are saving the kākāpō on Codfish Island that are being threatened by the fungal infection Aspergillosis.

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WkLl4 TIL Oxford University Professor Sir Andrew Wiles was awarded the Abel Prize and $700,000 in 2016 for solving a 358-year-old math problem known as “Fermat’s Last Theorem.” Fermat himself claimed to have found proof for the theorem, but the margins of his notes weren’t wide enough to contain it.

JYG68 TIL Ajay V. Bhatt, an Indian-born American computer architect who led the Intel team that invented the USB (Universal Serial Bus), regrets not making it reversible. It would have doubled the cost, which was a hard sell at the time, "[b]ut in hindsight, we blew it." He holds 132 patents and counting.

kQ6d TIL In the Iranian remake of Modern Family, Haft Sang, the same-sex relationship between Cam and Mitchell was replaced by a hetero relationship. Haley Dunphy’s character is replaced by a teenage boy. Her boyfriend is replaced by a close male friend because boy-girl relationships cannot be depicted.

GBD1 TIL Queen Mary of England was gifted a 1:12 scale doll house in 1924. It had working lights, books that were specially written by writers for the library, bottles filled with the appropriate drinks in the wine cellar, and model cars made by Rolls Royce. Even the toilets had working plumbing.

E16Dd TIL in the early days of drugstore ice cream counters and soda shops, medicine such as cocaine and heroin were added to drinks at the customers discretion. The sweet flavors helped cover up the bitter taste of the medicine.