Today I found out what causes lactose intolerance. Lactose intolerance is simply the body’s inability to digest lactose. Lactose is a disaccharide, or a molecule made up of two types of sugars, in this case, glucose and galactose. Most people have an enzyme (a protein molecule that breaks down other molecules) lactase in their digestive systems. This enzyme breaks down […]
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Note: This is a guest post contributed by List25.com. People getting only 6 to 7 hours of sleep every night have a longer life expectancy than those who sleep 8 hours. Both whales and dolphins literally fall half asleep. Their brain hemispheres take turns so they can continue surfacing to breathe. The world record for not sleeping was set by […]
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Today I found out crocodiles really do shed tears when they eat. It has been known for centuries that crocodiles weep while eating. One of the earliest references to this comes from the 14th century bestseller The Voyage and Travel of Sir John Madeville, where the author writes In that country and by all Inde be great plenty of cockodrills, […]
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The melody that would be borrowed for the Star Spangled Banner was extremely popular and well known at the time the future U.S. national anthem was penned. It is known to have been used for at least 84 popular songs in the United States alone, including Adams and Liberty – The Boston Patriotic Song and the subsequent tune Jefferson and […]
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Embed This Infographic[Source: Today I Found Out]
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Today I found out how Honey bees keep their hives warm even though they are cold blooded. Up until only a few years ago, it was thought by many scientists that Honey bee hives were kept warm by pupae in the brood and that the bees would often congregate there to warm themselves up from the pupae. Recently, this was […]
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Popcorn saw its biggest surges in popularity during times of duress, particularly during the Great Depression and WWII. The former of which because popcorn was an extremely cheap snack, being one of the few snack items many families could afford. So while many in the snack industry struggled through the Great Depression, the popcorn industry thrived. Popcorn saw another huge […]
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Microwave ovens convert Vitamin B12 to an inactive form unusable by humans. From a practical standpoint, this means typically around 30-40% of the Vitamin B12 in microwaved foods gets converted during the time it spends being heated or re-heated in a microwave oven. On the flip-side, spinach loses about 77% of its Vitamin B9 when cooked in a normal stove, […]
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The Ewoks in Star Wars were named after the Native American tribe Miwok. The Miwok’s lived in the Redwood forest that is the setting for the Endor scenes on Return of the Jedi. It has also been suggested that Princess Leia’s bun hair style was also of Native American origin, based on the Hopi Indian “Squash Blossom” hair style that […]
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Earthworms are hermaphrodites. When two worms mate, both worms produce children. The worms mate by getting in more or less a 69 position and exchanging sperm with one another. Much later, a cocoon is then secreted by the clitellum band, which is visible near the front of the worm. This is roughly ring shaped. As it’s sliding out of the […]
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Daylight saving time once got a man out of being drafted for the Vietnam War. When drafted, he argued that standard time, not daylight saving time, was the official time for recording births in his state of Delaware at the time of his birth. Thus, he was actually born the previous day using standard time, so he should have had […]
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The first known reference of the term “Pop”, as referring to a beverage, was in 1812 in a letter written by English poet Robert Southey. In this letter, he also explains the term’s origin: “Called on A. Harrison and found he was at Carlisle, but that we were expected to supper; excused ourselves on the necessity of eating at the […]
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