› added 12 years ago

92

TIL Today is the 197th birthday of the author of the first computer algorithm, Ada Lovelace.

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epl8n TIL about Encephalitis lethargica. Known as sleepy sickness, it was a 10 year epidemic with no known cause and continues sporadically today.
dDxXd TIL that the alpha gal allergy can be limited to only one meat or a specific set of meats with high fat content
mxJPP TIL around 2.5 billion years ago, the Oxygen Catastrophe occurred, where the first microbes producing oxygen using photosynthesis created so much free oxygen that it wiped out most organisms on the planet because they were used to living in minimal oxygenated conditions
VwP8 TIL that there are more overweight people than starving people in the world
ZAaa TIL that as the average girth of women has increased, fashion firms have stretched the size of their garments, partly in the belief that women feel better (and so are more likely to buy) if they can squeeze into the same size dress as in their more slender youth.