I recently came across a pretty interesting email subscription, which I thought I’d recommend. If you like Today I Found Out, you’ll probably like this: Now I Know It’s sort of similar to Today I Found Out, but through email. Every morning, the author, Dan Lewis, shares something interesting he’s learned over the last few weeks. For example, did you […]
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Today I Found Out has been nominated for the “Best Site of 2011 Award” from All My Faves. If you’d care to vote for Today I Found Out in that contest, I’d very much appreciate it. Just go here to vote : Vote 2011 and click “Like” there near the top. Alternatively, if you’d like to see what other sites […]
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Today I found out sushi is not raw fish, that’s sashimi. Sashimi is just sliced raw fish, sometimes dipped in sauces and sometimes served with sushi. Sushi is any food dish consisting of vinegared rice, usually served with some other toppings, but not always. It happens to often be served with various types of sea food, either cooked or raw, […]
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You may notice that sometimes when you click on posts to read, the page only partially loads. I’m working on fixing the issue at the moment, but no solution is currently presenting itself, or rather, I haven’t figured out yet what’s causing the problem, so it may be a little bit before the issue is resolved. For the present, if […]
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Today I found out gyroscopic effects have almost nothing to do with your ability to ride a bike. The problem with the forces generated from the gyroscopic effect on a typical bicycle is that they simply aren’t very powerful when considering the physics involved in having the majority of the center of mass of the bike at the top (with […]
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Today I found out Albert Einstein did not fail at mathematics in school. In fact, he actually excelled at mathematics throughout his schooling and even considered becoming a mathematician for a time. This rumor actually started while he was still alive and even showed up in a particular issue of Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. Einstein was shown the article […]
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Today I found out the actor who played Steve Urkel also did the voice for Sonic the Hedgehog. While staring in Family Matters, Jeleel White was cast to do the voice of Sonic the Hedgehog for 65 episodes in the animated series The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog in 1993. From 1993-1994, he also did the voice of the famous […]
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Today I found out it is actually quite safe to fly through an asteroid field. The reality is that the asteroids in asteroid fields are incredibly far apart and most of the objects in these fields are very tiny. There are generally hundreds of thousands of miles between these objects and most of them are no bigger than a tennis […]
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Today I found out about a real life white whale that destroyed over 20 whaling ships and reportedly survived encounters with another 80 or so. The massive 70 foot long albino sperm whale was named Mocha Dick and was one of the two whales that inspired the novel Moby Dick. Mocha Dick was given his name as he was first […]
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Today I found out what causes leprosy. Known as Hansen’s Disease, leprosy is caused by a type of bacteria (mycobacterium leprae) that multiplies very slowly. Its incubation period can last up to 20 years and it mainly affects the skin and peripheral nerves. Contrary to the social stigma, leprosy is not highly contagious, and does not cause body parts to […]
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Today I found out Marie Antoinette never said “let them eat cake”. Now, I know what some of you are thinking, “Of course she didn’t, she spoke French!” But, in fact, she didn’t say “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” either. In fact, this saying in France actually pre-dated her arrival there by anywhere from about thirty years to as much […]
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Today I found out American “buffalo” are not actually buffalo. The American “buffalo” are actually bison. Specifically, they are “Bison bison”. The only true buffalo are the Asian water buffalo and the African buffalo. The American bison are actually very closely related to the Wisent, which are European bison. American bison are also somewhat closely related to cattle. In fact, […]
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Today I found out the difference between Cement and Concrete. In general terms, the word cement refers to any kind of binder that tightly holds other materials together. Concrete, on the other hand, is a mixture of materials like sand, gravel, and small rocks combined with any type of cement and water. The concoction is then allowed to dry and […]
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Today I found out the Earth is hottest when it is furthest from the Sun on its orbit, not when it is closest. During the period when the Earth is furthest from the sun (aphelion), the average temperature of the entire planet is about 4°F (2.3°C) higher than when it is closest to the sun (perihelion). On average, the intensity […]
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Today I found out fortune cookies were invented in Japan, not China or America. The commonly held notion that they were invented in China typically comes from the fact that they are primarily served in Americanized Chinese restaurants. However, you will not find fortune cookies in actual Chinese restaurants, nor will you find historical records of a similar food item […]
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In 1972, a 29 year old Nolan Bushnell and a 35 year old Ted Dabney were fresh off a sort of successful failure in an arcade game known as Computer Space, which was more or less just a very blatant rip-off of a previous game Bushnell had come across called Spacewar! The pair had gotten a company called Nutting Associates […]
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Today I found out Keanu Reeves’ first name is pronounced “Kay-ah-noo”, not “Key-ah-Noo”. That isn’t the only misconception surrounding his name. The name itself means “the coolness”, but is often incorrectly said to mean “cool breeze over the mountains”. Reeves’ was named after his uncle Henry Keanu Reeves. In Keanu Reeves’ early days in Hollywood, his agent thought his name […]
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Today I found out the holiday season has the lowest suicide rate of any time of the year, not the highest. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the holiday season actually is the time of the year when there are the least amount of suicides with the lowest point being December 1st and the lowest rate of […]
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