Recent comments in /f/todayilearned

WonderWmn212 OP t1_jaasmc1 wrote

Reply to TIL American ballet dancer Tanaquil Le Clercq contracted polio at age 27 in 1956 and was confined to a wheelchair. Le Clercq began studying with George Balanchine at age 12 and married him at age 23. When she was 15, Balanchine choreographed a dance for a polio benefit which presaged her illness. by WonderWmn212

Source:

When Le Clercq "was 15 and a prodigy in Balanchine’s school, he made a ballet called 'Resurgence' on her and some fellow students for a March of Dimes benefit at the Waldorf-Astoria. The music was Mozart’s String Quintet in G minor, and at the close of the plangent adagio, Balanchine, as the Threat of Polio, came onstage wearing a large black cape and enveloped her; she sank to the floor. In the final movement — a sunny allegro — she reappeared in a wheelchair, children tossed dimes, and she rose and danced again. What at the time was a simple exercise in entertaining a charity audience acquired in retrospect the weight of an omen or a hex. Balanchine, who was deeply mystical, was haunted by the notion that he had somehow brought on her fate."

I love Le Clercq's attitude: "[S]he was mystified when people told her they admired her courage. To hear her tell it, she had just gone on. In fact, just going on required a choice. She once told me it took her 10 years to decide not to commit suicide. 'And then,' she said, 'I was fine.' ... It was not, in truth, all downhill after the polio. Life after dancing wasn’t less or worse, just different. When in 1984 a documentary about Balanchine was broadcast on television, she saw clips of herself dancing. I asked if that was hard. She said no — by that time she’d been sitting longer than she’d been standing, and besides, the friends she had danced with were retired, so they weren’t dancing anymore, either."

11

Who_GNU t1_jaasduh wrote

Reply to TIL the human body consumes and produces its weight in ATP every day. by Gullible_Skeptic

By that metric, you "consume" over 10 tons of hemoglobin every day.

Of course you don't have to eat 10 tons of food every day, because when you "consume" oxyhemoglobin it leaves deoxyhemoglobin, which is converted back to oxyhemoglobin, in your lungs.

ADP does the same thing, but with phosphorus instead of oxygen, temporarily becoming ATP. It's not really being consumed and recycled, it's just being reused.

20

NicoteachEsMx t1_jaarisc wrote

Reply to comment by Godtiermasturbator in TIL that when epidemiologist Tamara Safonova and virologist Alexandra Sheboldaeva discovered Tick-Borne Encephalitis Virus in 1937, they were accused of spreading the virus themselves and sentenced to 18 years in Soviet labor camps. by SecretAgentIceBat

The first doctors who informed about COVID were jailed for altering the public order or sth like that... https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/02/04/chinese-doctor-has-coronavirus/

7

shalafi71 t1_jaar9sy wrote

Reply to comment by Cute_Consideration38 in TIL Poltergeist, which came out in 1982, was rated PG. This is despite not just the movie fitting perfectly into the horror genre, but also many adult themes including the smoking of marijuana and a deep dive into the occult. by duganaok

Ah! Makes more sense. But I see Disney simply telling stories that resonate with children, making 'em money. Every example you give is a child's power trip fantasy. "Yeah! I could do that thing!" Got any kids around? They're dumber than rocks when it comes to nuance; They're not reading life lessons into a cartoon.

Do you honestly see Disney having some sort of moral agenda? Reddit tells me all corporations are mindless money-making machines with no morals.

If you state that Disney does have some sort of agenda, especially a liberal one, why aren't they publicly dropping the hammer on DeSantis for his shenanigans? (May be getting far off track here, especially if you're not up-to-date on the story.)

1

barnacledoor t1_jaaqsrb wrote

Reply to comment by RigasTelRuun in TIL Last year 93yo actor James Hong became the oldest person ever to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He has over 600 acting credits spanning 70 years. by n3xus-7

looks like an average of 20 new stars per year. so, $1m in star fees are collected per year. i wonder how much the whole thing costs per star between the construction and all of the other stuff like media and such. the $75k, that's basically paying one or two people's salary to review those applications (depending on how much they are paid). the application fees seem reasonable, but the $50k per star seems a bit much. i wonder how much they have to pay for the permits and such. i could see the gov't making it expensive.

14

Thunderbird120 t1_jaaqq3u wrote

Reply to comment by Animal_Prong in TIL the last B-52 Bomber produced for the US left the factory 10/26/1962 - the same day as the climax of the Cuban Missile Crisis - they're still used 60 yrs later. by GoGaslightYerself

Nope, they live on. The B-21 replaces the B-1 and the B-2 but the B-52 continues. There are a lot of roles which don't need stealth but do need significant payloads, range, and the ability to bolt large, oddly shaped things under the wings. The B-52s theoretically take some pressure off the B-21s for things like chucking long range cruise missiles or deploying MALDs. You can technically do that out of cargo planes these days but the B-52s already exist, are a little better for the role, and don't really cost that much to operate.

11