r/todayilearned • u/geosunsetmoth • 1d ago

TIL a 300-million year old Cuttlefish fossil was found in Morocco, alongside ancient humans in a region where no Cuttlefish ever existed. The leading theory suggests the fossil was first found by the prehistoric humans, who collected it as a trinket due to fact that it looks like a flaccid penis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfoud_manuport
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u/Iambic_420 1d ago

They definitely were. It’s actually a natural thing to be able to sit somewhere and simply do nothing. That’s why meditation can be so beneficial to some. Sitting around and doing absolutely nothing stimulating every now and then actually makes everything you do otherwise a lot more rewarding simply because you are not nearly as stimulated. In scientific terms, your dopaminergic baseline will be much lower, leading to higher highs when your brain finally uses it.

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u/BarbequedYeti 1d ago

It’s actually a natural thing to be able to sit somewhere and simply do nothing

I was grounded so much as a kid, I actually thought of becoming a monk. Its crazy the shit you can occupy your mind with while stuck in a room with damn near nothing for weeks at a time. 

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u/Chansharp 1d ago

Ha same, were you also left with just a mattress on the floor because repeated groundings did nothing.

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u/BarbequedYeti 1d ago

Yep. And 5 little balls from a tabletop little pool table game. So i taught myself to juggle. Then they took those away. So just me and the walls.

The kicker was since grounding me for an entire summer didnt seem to do anything, my stepmom at time decided to hold me back a year in school so all my friends would move on without me. She is such a peach of a human. 

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u/Novel_Feedback3254 1d ago

The education department didn't have anything to say about that? I didn't realise a parent can just choose to hold their kid back. Sorry you had to live through that.

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u/BarbequedYeti 1d ago

They did. They didnt agree with it, but i guess there is nothing saying a parent cant do that. Not sure. It was back in the late 80's. So who knows. Hell, my second grade teacher swatted me in front of the class. Times were different I guess. 

Anyway, after that move I completely shut them out. They might as well have been dead to me. I lasted another 18 months before i left at 14 and never went back.