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Every so often I come across a very interesting fact or topic that I hadn't known of before. This will be a collection of those so they don't just slip away.

• For several hundred years (~ 800AD - 1500AD) the Islamic world was at the forefront of medical knowledge and technology with great medical scholars such as Avicenna and Rhazes - part of a greater Islamic Golden Age in sciences and arts (~ 9th - 13th Centuries AD) . Within the past 500 years however, there has been a decline in science and technology in the Islamic world .

• A CIA operation ( NYTimes article , Wikipedia article ) starting in 1982 fed tailored misinformation to a KGB technology espionage program called Line X. This included “Contrived computer chips found their way into Soviet military equipment, flawed turbines were installed on a gas pipeline, and defective plans disrupted the output of chemical plants and a tractor factory. The Pentagon introduced misleading information pertinent to stealth aircraft, space defense, and tactical aircraft. The Soviet Space Shuttle was a rejected NASA design.” The greatest success came when tailored (trojaned) software running a pipeline triggered and “reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to the pipeline joints and welds” causing “the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space”.

• Female hysteria used to be treated as a commonly occurring disease (up to 25% of all females) caused by sexual deprivation or dissatisfaction. It was treated by “pelvic massage” of the genital area until “hysterical paroxysm” (now better known as orgasm) by a doctor or midwife. So the vibrator was originally designed as a medical device which was sold before many other electric appliances such as the vacuum cleaner and the iron. So the urban myth of a sexually dissatisfied female expressing certain emotional traits was actually believed as medical fact for thousands of years (at least 350BC to 1900).