TIL: Today I Learned

[Kyriakos]

TIL also about a terrifying disease I didn't know existed called Chagas.

It is from South America and you get it when a Kissing Bug bites you on the face when you sleep.
It infects you with Chagas, and then the disease spends the next 30 years quietly chewing through your heart until you die from heart disease.

I think I read somewhere that something like 66% of Chagas infected people had heart damage after they died and got autopsied?
That's the 20-40% that had life-threatening symptoms plus a bunch more than never showed any symptoms at all, but their heart still got chewed on just the same.

Anyway, it is now spreading outside of South America, so expect to start hearing about it in Southern USA.
The Kissing Bug is also called the Assassin Bug since it is basically giving you the kiss of death.

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-29343210

The teen in the story also had Chagas.
Her mother passed it to her in the womb.
Hopefully she got treated and the heart damage isn't too bad or even better not damaged at all.

People in the US know nothing about it.
https://nutritionreview.org/2017/05/death-rate-from-chagas-disease-higher-than-expected/

"Everything bad always comes from Libya South America"

(Ἀεὶ Λιβύη φέρει τι κακόν etc; ancient saying; Libya meaning the whole of Africa)

Btw, afaik it is called 'the assassin bug' cause of its proboskis being used to spear its prey.

And with those colours it most likely is toxic as well (unless it just uses false signs, in a known type of mimicry).

Parasites are the worst thing ever.

 

[Zkribbler]

There are over 100 different versions of Marco Polo's travels.

 

[The_J]

Guess they didnt record ut accurately?

So last Christmas I got fed up getting only 3 or 4 Brazil Nuts in my mixed nuts and bought a 1LB bag off of Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Farm-Fresh-Nuts-Roasted-Himalayan/dp/B00KWD032A/ref=sr_1_11_s_it?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1528080692&sr=1-11&keywords=brazil+nuts&th=1

Brazil nuts are the big fat nuts in the mixed nuts tin.
Ate the whole 1 pound bag over a period of 7 days.

TIL that eating more than 6 brazil nuts per day for months at a time will probably give you selenium poisoning.
I ate 25 a day for a week!
So I probably poisoned myself a little.
Don't think any of my hair fell out?

Brazil Nuts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_nut


Grrr, why isn't there a warning label on the 16oz bag of brazil nuts?
Nope, neither front nor back mentions poisoning yourself.

Selenium Poisoning symptoms
https://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/11-selenium-toxicity-dangers/

Wait, eating the whole $8 jar of macadamia nuts is ok, right?

Depending on different factors (e.g. rest of your nutrition, amount you drank, etc) you might have taken up a good lot less than there was in the nuts.
(Doesnt mean i'd recommend eating so many)

 

[Hrothbern]

So last Christmas I got fed up getting only 3 or 4 Brazil Nuts in my mixed nuts and bought a 1LB bag off of Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Farm-Fresh-Nuts-Roasted-Himalayan/dp/B00KWD032A/ref=sr_1_11_s_it?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1528080692&sr=1-11&keywords=brazil+nuts&th=1

Brazil nuts are the big fat nuts in the mixed nuts tin.
Ate the whole 1 pound bag over a period of 7 days.

TIL that eating more than 6 brazil nuts per day for months at a time will probably give you selenium poisoning.
I ate 25 a day for a week!
So I probably poisoned myself a little.
Don't think any of my hair fell out?

Brazil Nuts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_nut


Grrr, why isn't there a warning label on the 16oz bag of brazil nuts?
Nope, neither front nor back mentions poisoning yourself.

Selenium Poisoning symptoms
https://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/11-selenium-toxicity-dangers/

Wait, eating the whole $8 jar of macadamia nuts is ok, right?

yeah
Natural poisoneous foods are in general allowed and do not get warning labels. A blind spot.
With those Brazil nuts (para nuts), it doe matter from which tree, what area, but even the lowest grade has still too much to eat them generously.
The biggest retail chain in the Netherlands took them silently out of their assortment, except for mixed nuts.
But because of the organic hype, now back in the organic assortment.

Cod liver is another one.
One can of cod liver in the fish oil is by far the cheapest source for animal Omega-3. And you get Vit D and Vit A for free.
But if you eat more than one can of 100 grams per two weeks, you go already above the max Vit A.
And again no warning for that, because food is outside those kind of warnings.
The only way you can protect yourself from that is to eat with variation,
and when not search on internet.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

My grandmother used to force me to swallow a kid-size spoonful of cod liver oil every morning.

That was before I started school, though, when she looked after me when my mother was working. She eventually stopped.

 

[Hrothbern]

My grandmother used to force me to swallow a kid-size spoonful of cod liver oil every morning.

That was before I started school, though, when she looked after me when my mother was working. She eventually stopped.

With me it was my mother... no escaping
Despite being with six people at home, it was most of the time a bit rancid
Later we got Sanostol, sugar and Orange flavor were added.
Raised without any sweets or snacks, except on Sunday a cookie or a piece of homemade cake...... I secretly took in the evenings a small gulp.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

No flavorings in my case. Mind you, this was back in the '60s before they started flavoring everything.

 

[Hrothbern]

somewhere 1965 Sanostol was available
Because of the concentrated orange juice, it was also advertised for the Vit C

 

[Valka D'Ur]

That's not what I had.

 

[Yeekim]

Cod liver spread on toast is pretty good.
Thanks for the tip/warning @Hrothbern, I might have exceeded that limit a couple times.

 

[Hrothbern]

Cod liver spread on toast is pretty good.
Thanks for the tip/warning @Hrothbern, I might have exceeded that limit a couple times.

Your liver can store roughly 100-150 days of daily recommendation of Vit A at a healthy vit A storage and body serum level.
One 120 gram can of cod liver is typical 10 days of the daily recommendation (for a male adult), so you have a lot of buffering effect, like with most fatty vitamins.
And like all fatty vitamins, you cannot piss excess out like with water soluable Vit C or B, so excess is stored.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

There are more than 7.8 million red foxes living in Australia. Britain has a stable population of around 230,000 red foxes.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

There are over 100 different versions of Marco Polo's travels.

And according to the Mongol exhibit I was just at - he didn't actually write any of them. He told his story to an author when they shared a prison cell and the author wrote it up and published it.

 

[Zkribbler]

Firefly episodes which were never made. Thanks, Fox.

http://www.looper.com/56266/firefly-storylines-never-got-see/s/an-impossible-decision/

 

[Kyriakos]

On
June 5th 1995 at 17:55h, a mallard duck (Anas platyrhynchos) died after colliding with the all glass new wing of the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam. Immediately after falling to the ground, the dead duck was mounted by a (live) duck — also of the male sex. The copulation took 75 minutes, and became known in the scientific community as ‘the first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard’. The victim is on display in the museum. Each year on June 5th at 17:55h, just outside the museum, right on the spot where it all happened in 1995, people gather to celebrate ‘Dead Duck Day’. This short ceremony commemorates the dramatic death of the duck — and the tragedy of billions of other birds that die from colliding with glass buildings.


http://deadduckday.com/

Swarte-Piet was just the tip of the dark iceberg in Dutchland

 

[Traitorfish]

Today- well, yesterday- I learned that the online Les Mis fandom celebrate June 5th as "Barricades Day".

As you might guess, the 1832 Rebellion appears to be as much a genuine historical event for these people as the Battle of Endor, and probably with less clearly-defined historical context. It's, ah, it's a little bit gross.

 

[Kyriakos]

Today- well, yesterday- I learned that the online Les Mis fandom celebrate June 5th as "Barricades Day".

As you might guess, the 1832 Rebellion appears to be as much a genuine historical event for these people as the Battle of Endor, and probably with less clearly-defined historical context. It's, ah, it's a little bit gross.

You can only get out of this par ballon monte

 

[Tigranes]

TIL that

IHOP will be now IHOb. People say House of bacon. But I have a better guess. International house of breakfast!

 

[civvver]

that's so stupid. Do they really think more people will come if it's just breakfast vs pancakes?

 

[Ryika]

IHObdsm. Make it happen!