##EMBED## Click Here for Sources and to Learn More Interesting Earthworm Facts Text Version Even though earthworms need to breathe, they have no lungs. They acquire oxygen through their skin. This is why earthworms surface after heavy rains, despite the fact that it is extremely hazardous for them to do so. If they don’t surface, they will suffocate and die […]
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##EMBED## Click Here to Read More Interesting Coffee Related Facts Text Version George Washington invented instant coffee… No, not that George Washington, but rather an English chemist, George Constant Washington.
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##EMBED## Click Here for More Interesting Twinkie Facts Text Version Of the 39 ingredients that make up a Twinkie, only one of them is strictly a preservative or rather its only purpose in being included is because it’s a preservative. Some of the other chemicals have preserving side effects, but their use is primarily as substitutes for the dairy ingredients. […]
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Yar me maties, today I found out what be causing scurvy. Like most people, I already knew that scurvy is caused by a lack of vitamin C and that it was a major problem aboard ships out to sea for a good length of time and is still somewhat of a problem in places where people are malnourished. But I […]
Read moreToday I Found Out was started almost exactly one year ago on January 1st, 2010. This year the site has been viewed by over four million people worldwide with the best month of the year coming this month, in December, receiving over 1.3 million page views from over 800,000 visitors. There are now about 270 articles on Today I Found […]
Read moreTop Five Most Visited Articles in December: 1. How the Gun on the Original Duck Hunt Game Worked [Dec. Visitors: 114,972 | Posted On Dec. 28, 2010] 2. The Tongue Doesn’t Have Zones for Different Tastes [Dec. Visitors: 50,894 | Posted On May 11, 2010] 3. What the Things You See When You Rub Your Eyes Are Called [Dec. Visitors: […]
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##EMBED## Click Here for Sources and More Interesting Simpson’s Facts Text Version Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, named many of the characters after his own family such as: Homer (his dad), Margaret (his mom), Maggie and Lisa (his sisters), and Abe (his grandfather). His brother Mark was the inspiration for Bart. He chose to name the character “Bart”, […]
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“That’s what she said” is thought to have been around since the 1970s with the earliest known documented case of the phrase showing up on Saturday Night Live, spoken by Chevy Chase in a weekend update skit in 1975, which also happened to be the first season of SNL. “That’s what she said” was later hugely popularized thanks to Wayne’s […]
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##EMBED## Click Here for Sources and to Learn What Causes the Northern and Southern Lights Text Version In Roman mythology, Aurora was the goddess of the dawn, which is how the first part of the name “aurora borealis” came about. The “borealis” comes from the Greek name for the north wind, Boreas.
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Today I found out the origins of the word “Algebra”. It all started back around 825 AD when a man named Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, the “father” of Algebra, wrote a book called “Kitab al-jabr wa al-muqabalah”. This roughly translates to “Rules of Reintegration and Reduction”. This work was specifically covering the branch of mathematics we now know […]
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Today I found out the actor who played Uncle Phil in Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was also the voice of Shredder in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cartoon series. *mind blown* Bonus Factoids: Uncle Phil, also occasionally known as James Avery in the real world, was also the voice of James Rhodes in the 1990s Iron Man series. After […]
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##EMBED## Click Here for Sources and for Interesting Facts About the Radioactive Banana and Brazil Nut Text Version Despite the name, the primary exporter of “Brazil” “nuts” is Bolivia, who account for about 50% of Brazil nuts exported world-wide. They are also not nuts, but rather seeds. So the whole name is a lie.
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Today I found out how the gun on the original Duck Hunt game worked. If you’ve ever played Duck Hunt or any of the other NES games that used the NES Zapper gun, you probably at one point or another wondered how the game actually knows where on the TV you are aiming the gun when you pulled the trigger. […]
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Today I found out what SOS stands for. It is commonly held that “SOS” is an acronym for “Save Our Ship” and thus often written “S.O.S.” In truth, SOS is not an acronym for anything, which is why it is incorrect to put full stops between each letter. So why was SOS chosen to signify a distress signal? The thought […]
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##EMBED## Click Here to Learn More about the Word “Desert” Text Version The word ‘desert’, as in “to get what is coming to you”, has been used in English since around the 13th century. This word, however, has fallen out of common usage and now, outside of the idiom “just desert”, is almost never used.
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##EMBED## Click Here to Learn Why Poop is Brown Text Version In India, rather than use toilet paper, it is typical to simply use your left hand. If you think that is bad, in Ancient Rome, a wet sponge on a stick was used. That sounds all well and fine until you find out that that after being used, the […]
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