30 facts from the popular Today I Learned community (31 photos)

The more new things we read, hear, learn on the Internet, the better. The process of learning - even if it's just random facts that spark curiosity - gives us motivation, confidence and interest in the world around us. In short, it prevents our brain from getting bored.





1.



California Academy of Sciences biologist Timothy Wong single-handedly restored a population of rare swallowtail butterflies in San Francisco. Over the past few years, he has raised more than 200 California Pipevine Swallowtail butterflies and donated thousands of caterpillars to a local botanical garden.

2.





Javier Bardem's No Country for Old Men character Anton Chigurh has been voted "the most realistically portrayed psychopath" on screen by an independent panel of psychologists in the Journal of Forensic Sciences.

3.



The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) denied black singer Marian Anderson permission to perform at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., under a "whites only" law. When this happened, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR and arranged for Anderson to speak to a crowd of more than 75,000 people.

4.



In 2014, GM recalled 800,000 vehicles due to a faulty ignition system. Cars turned off while driving, power steering or brakes stopped working, and airbags did not deploy. The company has known about this problem since 2005, but hasn't fixed it because it would be "too expensive." 124 people died.

5.



Environmental activist Julia "Butterfly" Hill lived 55 meters above the ground in a 1,500-year-old redwood tree (known as Luna) for 738 days to stop the Pacific Lumber Company from cutting down the tree. Sequoia Luna was saved.

6.



In the movie Titanic, duty officer William Murdoch, who was on duty on the bridge, shoots a passenger and then commits suicide. In fact, the last time he was seen was trying to fill as many lifeboats as possible with passengers, and he died heroically along with the ship.

7.



People with dementia begin to have problems with visual perception. For example, they think that things like a black rug are a deep hole in the floor and don't want to step on it.

8.



There was a case when a camel, standing in the 43 C heat all day, bit off its absent-minded owner's head after he untied it.

9.



In 1997, a Danish woman visiting New York was arrested and strip-searched for leaving her baby in a stroller outside a restaurant while she and the baby's father dined inside, a common practice in Denmark. She later sued the city and received $66,000.

10.



Isaac Asimov wrote or edited more than 500 books, 380 short stories, and approximately 90,000 letters and postcards. He was a professor of biochemistry at Boston University. In 1983, he underwent triple bypass surgery, during which he contracted HIV through a blood transfusion. This fact was kept secret for 10 years after his death.

eleven.



The Jurassic Park movie was supposed to use stop-motion animation rather than CGI, but two artists were secretly working on a digital T. rex. When they finished it, they discreetly put the video on the screen and showed the result to the producer, director and the rest of the team. The video turned out to be convincing and it was decided to use computer graphics.

12.



The Rolls Royce Ghost prototype was so quiet inside that it made test drivers sick. Engineers had to remove some of the sound-deadening material and create seats that vibrated at certain frequencies to add some noise to the cabin.

13.



Nature has transformed various types of crustaceans from non-crab-like to crab-like forms at least five times. This evolutionary phenomenon is known as carcinization, and is also known as "one of Nature's many attempts to create the crab."

14.



Ian Fleming originally wanted Bond to be an extremely boring and uninteresting person to whom all sorts of unexpected things just happen. He called him James Bond because it was the most boring name he had ever heard.

15. The Andromeda Galaxy has already begun to merge with our Milky Way



16.



A side effect of a cancer treatment known as dynamic phototherapy is that people have poor night vision. With this treatment, the retina becomes capable of processing light with wavelengths exceeding the range of visible light.

17.



A park ranger was attacked by a Komodo dragon in his office on Rinca Island. Varan was hiding under the table (the cleaning lady accidentally left the door open the night before, so he climbed inside). The smell of blood attracted even more Komodo dragons from the street. The ranger was taken to hospital and survived, but still has nightmares.

18.



The violin of the musician from the Titanic, found next to his body in a case along with sheet music and given to his widow, was sold at auction in 2013 for $1.6 million.

19.



During the Great Depression, banker Mark Welch Munro convinced struggling families in Quincy, Florida, to buy shares of Coca-Cola stock, which was worth $19 at the time. The city later became the richest city in the United States per capita, with no fewer than 67 millionaires.

20.



In 2019, researchers from Tel Aviv University successfully 3D printed a human heart using the patient's own cells. Biological materials were reportedly used to "fully match the immunological, cellular, biochemical and anatomical properties of the patient."

21.



Every year on December 21, the inner chamber of Newgrange, a prehistoric Irish monument older than Stonehenge, is illuminated by the rising sun for 18 minutes.

22.



It has become a tradition in Italy to watch the movie Trading Places on Christmas Eve and is watched by millions of people every year.

23.



In 2002, 4 Spider-Man suits were stolen during filming. They cost US$50,000 to make and Sony offered US$25,000 for their return. This led to an 18-month investigation, and the suits were eventually found in Los Angeles, New York and Tokyo. They were stolen by a security guard working on the set.

24.



In 2009, French freediver Stephane Mifsud held his breath underwater for 11 minutes and 35 seconds.

25.



Olympians can use the inscription OLY on any official documentation after their name - it is something like a Ph. degree. D. (Ph.D.) in academia.

26.



Vanilla beans (like coffee beans) have different flavors depending on the country or origin. Some taste like figs, others like cherries, others like licorice, and all have a core flavor of vanilla.

27.



Ray Bradbury typed the first draft of Fahrenheit 451 on a typewriter in the basement of the University of California library, which cost 10 cents per 30 minutes to use. 9 days and $9.80 later, he had a short story called "The Fireman", which was later expanded into the novel "Fahrenheit 451".

28.



Most of the films of the silent era are irretrievably lost. And at least half of all sound films made between 1927 and 1950 are lost.

29.



Two years before he died from cancer, George Harrison was stabbed more than 40 times by an intruder who broke into his home and attacked him with a kitchen knife.

thirty.



Andrzej Sapkowski sold the rights to create video games based on The Witcher to CD Projekt Red for a lump sum of $9,500.