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More than 2,500 barbiturates have been synthesized. At the height of their popularity, about 50 were marketed for human use.
The modern decimal position system was the invention of the Hindus (around 800 AD), involving the placing of numerals to indicate their value (units, tens, hundreds, and so on).
The Romans did not use numerals to indicate fractions but instead used words to indicate parts of a whole.
People with high total cholesterol have about two times the risk for heart disease as people with ideal levels.
When Gabriel Fahrenheit invented the first mercury thermometer, he called "zero degrees" the lowest temperature he was able to attain with a mixture of ice and salt. For the upper point of his scale, he used 96°, which he measured as normal human body temperature (we know it to be 98.6° today because of more accurate thermometers).