Please help me welcome Julia as a regular contributing writer to Today I Found Out. Julia is yet another talented writer from BuzzFactory, along with Noreen who joined Today I Found Out about five months ago and occasionally contributes articles, as well as makes the awesome infographics you’ll find in the Infographic section on Today I Found Out. Julia will […]
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Today I launched a new section on Today I Found Out: Quick Facts This section of the site will be updated several times daily with various interesting quick facts on a variety of different topics. Unlike most short “facts” you’ll find around on the internet, the quick facts you’ll find in this section have all been thoroughly researched to verify […]
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Today I found out why garlic makes your breath smell bad. There are a few things going on to cause this bad smell, but principally the root cause is various sulfuric compounds from the garlic. Initially, most of the bad breath resulting from eating garlic comes directly from the sulfuric compounds introduced into your mouth. Not only that, but garlic […]
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Today I found out why Amish men grow beards but not mustaches. This tradition stems back to the early days of the Amish when wearing elaborate mustaches was common among those in the military. In their early days, the Amish and other Mennonites in Europe were often persecuted by these groups. In addition to that, the Amish, being a pacifist […]
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Today I found out the color orange was named after the fruit, not the other way around. Before then, the English speaking world referred to the orange color as geoluhread, which literally translates to “yellow-red”. The word orange itself was introduced to English through the Spanish word “naranja”, which came from the Sanskrit word nāraṅga, which literally means “orange tree”. […]
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Today I found out why Pop Rocks pop. Much like other hard sugar candies, Pop Rocks are made primarily of sugar, corn syrup, water, and artificial flavoring. It turns out, what causes it to pop when it comes in contact with the moisture and heat in your mouth is not due to any ingredient. Rather, it is due to the […]
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Today I found out Alfred Nobel, who left most of his fortune to start the Nobel Prizes, was once nicknamed “The Merchant of Death”. The “merchant of death” title was given to him due to Nobel inventing, and making most of his vast fortune off of, dynamite and other types of explosives, such as “ballistite”, which was the precursor to […]
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Note: This is a guest article contributed by frequent TIFO visitor and owner of DumpADay, Jon. Today I found out that the dragonfly can fly up to 60 miles per hour, which makes it the fastest insect on the planet. Interestingly, dragonflies only have their wings for about 3 to 4 weeks of their lifespan. Dragonflies lay their eggs in […]
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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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“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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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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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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Today I found out why asparagus makes pee smell. The smell comes from the way certain chemical compounds in asparagus break down inside people’s bodies. This is why cooking asparagus in various ways does not result in the same smelly byproduct; the specific digestive enzymes that break down the compounds in the asparagus to produce the smell aren’t present until […]
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Today I found out that the “Pull and Pray” method statistically is just about as effective as condoms for preventing pregnancy. Indeed, according to Dr. John Guillebaud in his book Contraception: Your Questions Answered, some of the lowest birth rates in history pop up around cultures whose primary method of contraception is the pull and pray method. This method, also […]
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