› added 9 months ago

77

TIL that a few hours before their flight, cosmonauts are spun on swivel chairs, tilted on special beds, and deliberately disoriented to prepare for zero-G, especially to handle space sickness caused by leaving the planet

gMePD TIL saving data to an SSD, RAM, flash memory, etc. increases its weight by an extremely small amount. One calculation states that 1GB of flash memory completely filled with 1s weighs something like 729 femtograms more than the same memory filled with zeros.
epn74 TIL in 2006, a mother and son were convicted of trying to extort money from Cracker Barrel by claiming they found a dead mouse in her soup. Charges were filed after a necropsy showed the mouse had no soup in its lungs and had not been cooked, signs that it was dropped into the soup after its death.
1akMX TIL in 1856 a group of prussian railroad workers stole all the silver coins from a barrel and replaced them with sand. A scientist analized samples of sand from every station on that line which led to their capture.
ebgD TIL actor and comedian Rob Riggle was a Marine for 23 years, was a lieutenant colonel, and has received a combat award for his service in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Liberia.
PYxdJ TIL Ocho de Plata, the Spanish Dollar, was the first legal tender in the United States until the Coinage Act of 1857. In fact, equity shares were still quoted in eighths of a dollar until 2001; this was a legacy from the coin’s divisibility by 8, since each Spanish Dollar was worth 8 reales.