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The human brain has about one billion neurons. Each neuron forms about 1,000 connections to other neurons, making up more than a trillion connections. If each neuron could only help store a single memory, you might have only a few gigabytes of storage space. But neurons combine so that each one helps with many memories at a time, exponentially increasing the brain's memory storage capacity to something close to 2.5 petabytes (or a million gigabytes).
To put that into perspective, imagine your brain like a digital TV recorder. 2.5 petabytes would be enough to hold three million hours of TV shows — you could leave the TV running continuously for more than 300 years.
That's a lot of storage. So why waste it? Today I Learned, often shortened as TIL, is one of the biggest communities on Reddit. It has 25.9 million members, constantly sharing interesting trivia like the location of the clearest lake in the world or the reason why Nas listed his then 7-year-old daughter as an executive producer on his fifth album. To put some of your 2.5 petabytes to good use, we rounded up some of the best posts we could find on the subreddit.
However, since you will probably have a few megabytes to spare even after you finish scrolling through the list, fire up our older publications on Today I Learned here, here, and here.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
TIL that March 12th, 1990, over 60 disability rights activists abandoned their mobility aids and climbed, crawled, and edged up the 83 stone steps of the U.S Capitol, demanding the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which had been stalled in Congress. It was called the 'Capitol Crawl'.
Scagsy 4 years ago
It's disgusting that they should have to do that. I hope it.was passed swiftly.
Vicky Z 4 years ago
It is indeed but i really admire them for fighting!!!! Good for them not giving up!
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K Witmer 4 years ago
They were also arrested at the capital by capital police but the terrorists weren't on Jan 6
Teresa Thomas 4 years ago
The movie Crip Camp goes into far more detail in this and the struggle for ADA to be passed. Highly recommend this documentary, it is so amazing and the accounts are incredible. Netflix!
DDmaybeandor 4 years ago
Apparently the US has some of the most accessible buildings in the world. Of course, there's no ancient architecture to contend with either.
Monica Michelle 4 years ago
No we don't and many places with ancient architecture have made their sites accessible with lifts built into stairs
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PeachPossum 4 years ago
The girl pulling herself up the steps is Jennifer Keelan. She was born with cerebral palsy and this was her first role as an activist. She was 8 years old. Today Jennifer Keelan-Chaffins is an educator and motivational speaker. She has her own website jkclegacy.com and has written a book about her experience in the Wheels of Justice Rally known today as the Capitol Crawl. ADAPT organized the rally to protest inaccessibility of public transit systems. This event spurred Congress to pass ADA. I also strongly recommend the 2007 film "Music Within", about the remarkable friendship between Richard Pimentel, a deaf Viet Nam veteran, and Arthur Honeyman. Pimentel authored the document that would become the foundation for ADA. Art Honeyman, poet, author, and disability rights activist, is known for Sam and His Cart.
Rebecca O’Donnell 4 years ago
Thank you for all this information. The more informed we are maybe we can get more accomplished.
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Purple Panda Rae'n 4 years ago
B-r-a-v-e-r-y. Bravery defined- ALL the participating activists that day.
deanna woods 4 years ago
It is awful that these people had to do this just to get the same rights as everyone else. It does not surprise me in the slightest that the bill got stalled in the Congress. We had a Republican president at the time and I am guessing a Republican controlled Congress.
RELATED:
#2
Nas listed his then 7-year-old daughter, Destiny Jones, as an executive producer on his fifth studio album Stillmatic to ensure she would always receive royalty checks from the album.
Brandy Grote 4 years ago
Hmmm... Some of Keanu Reeves's movies list upwards of 20 exec producers. Is this why?
Nadine Bamberger 4 years ago
According to his ex wife and mother if his son, Kelis, really, really not a good man.
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Jose Ortiz 4 years ago
He's my all time favorite artist! All the young minds should listen to "I can" such a great track!
Full Name 4 years ago
Was there an actual executive producer though? If so, are they getting paid?
Signe Manat Hansen 4 years ago
Executive producer just means someone poured money into the project. And it's not typical that there's only one.
Load More Replies... #3
TIL the medals in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games are made from metals recovered from recycled cell phones collected since 2017.
kalastaja774 4 years ago
Fun fact. Did you know that there is more gold in cellphones than in gold ore? I mean gold per kgs of cellphones vs gold ore. We all should remember to recycle our old phones.
M O'Connell 4 years ago
All old electronics should be entering the proper recycling stream. You can help this process along with larger items by removing the bulkier lower-value components which can be recycled with regular household recycling. I recently recycled a vacuum cleaner which died do to lack of available spare parts. The vast majority of it was made of polypropylene plastic, which is ♷ (symbol #5) and that went in my regular can, leaving just a little pile of other plastics, wiring, and the motor for the e-waste drop off.
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Laura Pantazis 4 years ago
The Olympics took place in 2021, but because they were scheduled for 2020, they are referred to as the 2020 Olympics. The next summer Olympics will be in 2024, not 2025.
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#4
TIL: In 400BC, the Persians invented a way to make ice in the desert using evaporation cooling
Dawn Marie 4 years ago
I was sleeping in the Mojave Desert (CA, USA) around 1996-7 and only had my thin sleeping bag and no tent. Rained all day, froze my butt off, only to awaken to a sleeping bag covered in snow. Coming from Minnesota snow doesn’t amaze me, but I was young and was thinking a desert in California was only hot and dry and ill prepared. I was in the military on a training exercise so I semi blame my bosses for lacking on providing me with the education lol.
Jon S. 4 years ago
Make ice? They only kept ice. Iran gets very cold in the winter and very hot in the summer.
Uchman 4 years ago (edited)
Yes, they DID create ice. Yakhchāls were often used to store ice which naturally formed during winter, as well as storing food. However, these structures were also ABLE TO FREEZE water – even in the desert during the hotter months.
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The Red Shoe Broker 4 years ago
Found this gem while researching the subject: Water in the qanat does not evaporate in the sun and stays cooler because it’s underground. DOES NOT EVAPORATE IN THE SUN BECAUSE IT'S UNDERGROUND.
Jon S. 4 years ago
Why is this a gem, I don't understand? A qanat is a channel to take water from a mountain to a settlement. Qanats are wonderful engineering feats in themselves, but hardly capital text level surprising.
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#5
TIL the clearest lake in the world is the Blue Lake located in Nelson, New Zealand. Visibility in the lake is up to 80 metres meaning the water is considered almost as optically clear as distilled water.
albernistuff 4sale 4 years ago
Canadian here; so many folks struggle and work hard for a chance to move to Canada. I know we have it about as good as it gets, but I want to move to NZ :)
Sky Render 4 years ago
That actually puts Crater Lake in Oregon to shame (it has 37m clarity), which is impressive!
Sue Hazlewood 4 years ago
Also look up Te Waikoropupū Springs, known as Pupu Springs. Beautiful place.
Nicky Crawford 4 years ago
You couldn't retire there! It's in an alpine National Park and the only way to get there is by walking for a number of days. It's heavily protected by legislation and is closely monitored by rangers. Especially after fools started doing things like washing their hair and their plates in it.
Markus Holstein 4 years ago
How is it so clear, though? It would have to contain some kind of poisonous substance to prevent algae growth, one would think
April 4 years ago
From what I read, there's an underground passage that filters out suspended particles.
Load More Replies... #6
TIL the US provided Laos with funds and concrete to expand an airport which could serve as a base for US fighter jets during the Vietnam War. But as the funds and concrete arrived before any contract was signed, Laos decided instead to build a memorial to soldiers who died in World War II.
Saint Thomas 4 years ago
I saw it, it's in the capital Vientiane. It's massive. The picture doesn't do justice. There are even souvenir shops and food stalls inside it, above the arch and in the 'columns'.
Vasana Phong 4 years ago
😔, I miss my homeland, haven’t been back since 1980, the more i learned in adulthood about the wars, mines.. ect, I gotta put this on my bucket list
#7
TIL Octopuses are one of the most intelligent creatures on the planet, capable of solving complex puzzles, using tools, escaping captivity, and planning ahead in the future.
Gerard Neaux 4 years ago
When you have that many arms you're bound to want to find uses for them
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François Carré 4 years ago
The downside is that they don't get to raise their offspring - after spawning the mother doesn't feed herself anymore, she uses her very last forces to take care of the eggs and she dies just when they hatch. So the young don't benefit from their parents' life experience and they have to cope with every situation with their own intelligence, starting from scratch at each new generation. Otherwise they would have taken on the whole world long before humankind got a chance to evolve.
keepgoing 4 years ago
Perhaps this is why they are so intelligent...because they have to be
Load More Replies... Miss Frankfurter 4 years ago
And when tested in a lab setting, after one octopus figured out how to open a jar, when in a tank with a plexiglass division between them, that octopus showed the other one how to do that and they were able to accomplish this simply by observing demonstration.
Alexia 4 years ago
True fact: some friends were at a restaurant somewhere in Portugal. There was a big aquarium with live octopuses in the middle of the restaurant. Two of them ordered fried octopus, and were able to choose the octopus from the aquarium. Moments later, when their dishes came, they felt something awkwardly intense on their backs. They all turned over to see ALL the remaining octopuses crowded in a margin of the aquarium, staring at them. None of them ever touched cooked octopus since then. This is 100% true and was even shared on a local radio show.
Miss Cris 4 years ago
What a bad idea from the restaurant owner. Poor octopuses!
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Daria B 4 years ago
Not sure it's a good idea. The octopus will demand their fair share of money.
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Dirk Daring 4 years ago
If you don't want to cry, don't learn about how a mother octopus cares for her eggs until they hatch.
#8
TIL of Eric Moussambani, who had never seen an olympic sized swimming pool before the 2000 olympics. He recorded the slowest time in 100m freestyle history at 1:52.72, however won his heat as all other competitors false started. He is now a national hero the head swimming coach of Equatorial Guinea
Raven Sheridan 4 years ago
Also known as "Eric the Eel." Everybody loves an underdog. He's joined the ranks of Eddie the Eagle and the Jamaican bobsleders.
Scagsy 4 years ago
This needs to be a movie. I've already bought tissues in anticipation of the ending.
elSti 4 years ago
because in heat 1 there were only 3 swimmer who could participate because of the spirit of the Olympics, rather than their accomplishments. the 2 others jumped in the water to start in stead of staying on the starting block until the start.
Load More Replies... Pille P 4 years ago
I think instead of pro athletes these type of outsiders are more true to the olympic spirit. Instead of torturing the pros to beat records that are on the border of humanly impossible I think there should be a) non pro athletes b) reusable facilities and stadiums that will actually be used by youth and kids of the area later.
#9
TIL of Charlie Walker, the first non-government individual to fly into space. After NASA deemed him unqualified and rejected his 1978 application for astronaut, he co-developed a space bound device which required him to accompany it. Walker flew into space three times with the device he co-patented.
A B C 4 years ago
You forgot the "stomping his foot on the ground" part ;)
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#10
TIL Drowning people almost never shout, thrash or wave for help. 10% of children who drown are supervised by adults who don't recognise the signs.
Andy Acceber 4 years ago
Head back and/or very low in the water. Eyes bulging or shut entirely. Hair in the face (if possible), especially if it's in front of their eyes. Body in almost vertical position without leg movement.
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Hilary James 4 years ago
My daughter was at the pool with my mom when she was little. She was playing with another little girl in the pool and the little girl pushed my daughter under and held her down. My daughter couldn’t get up and started to panic but the girl would not let her up. My daughter bit the little girl and she finally let her up. The girls were right in front of my mom when this happened and didn’t realize the girl was holding my daughter down. My whole body jerks when I think about it.
Ellkje0805 4 years ago
Oh my god, what a terrifying experience for both you and your daughter! Hope everyone is okay!
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Zaza 4 years ago
Also drowning people will likely push you under when you try to save them. It has something to do with the paniced state they are in and an instinctive need to climb up whatever they can get a hold of. Which will be you. Be wary when jumping in to save someone and don't let them get a hold of you. Instead try to grab them from behind, like you've probably seen in movies
A B C 4 years ago
And if they manage to grab you, do what they fear the most: dive. They'll let go of you in an instant.
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Jerry T 4 years ago
My wife used to be a lifeguard. Her training is so engrained that it hasn't gone away. She has saved at least 4 kids while we were at various pools and lakes. We'll be talking when suddenly she will seem distracted but hyper focused. It's like a switch is flipped as she starts deliberately moving through the water. The kids are always described by others here: quiet, hair in their face, moving frantically but all underwater with just their heads bobbing above the surface and then dipping under. The worst time was at one of the big resorts in Orlando, FL. She almost had to perform mouth to mouth, meanwhile the kid's parents were only a foot or two away and looked at my wife like she was a monster as she was saving their son's life.
Annamagelic 4 years ago
Exactly, if you can shout you can breath, if you can breath you are NOT drowning. As a lifeguard I pulled several near drowning kids out of the pool. Generally the parents got angry at me for grabing their kids who were "fine."
kay s. 4 years ago
there's a series of wave pool rescues on youtube and they're all exactly as everyone describes: quiet, little movement, people nearby but completely unaware. i watch them bc i have small kids and want to recognize the signs but man, they make me cry even though they have good outcomes.
Eslamala 4 years ago
Also, being a good swimmer doesn't mean you have the skills to rescue someone who's drowining. Most of the time, the amateur rescuer also drowns
GoddessOdd 4 years ago
Sadly, too true. It happens here all the time, well meaning rescuers drown along with the original victim.
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Laura Mende (Human) 4 years ago (edited)
My sister once nearly drowned near lakeside in a very populated lake. There were dozens if not hundreds of people looking at her falling face down in the water and flapping and kicking around wildly. My elder brother runned to our parents. My father jumped up, rushed through the crowd and grabbed her, holding her at the feets to let the water out her mouth (she was 2-3yrs old at the time) But all were looking, nobody did anything... Sad.
Barbara Skolly 4 years ago
Little kids are so top heavy, they can't lift their heads back out. My 2 year old fell in the water two days ago, i was in arms reach and yanked her up right away
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TIL Crowing first at dawn is a privilege reserved for the highest ranking rooster.
JustAPanda 4 years ago
Social status is based on the one who gets to shout first. More like a Presidential campaign
Yaga Bialski 4 years ago
The opposite, first you rank (earn by the looks:)) then you crow!
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Aunt Messy 4 years ago
Except that they crow at all hours of the day. Constantly. It's maddening. The funniest thing is listening to a young rooster learning how to crow. They'll get a good start, then sound like they're coughing and spitting.
Moopy Reboot 4 years ago
Yes. God. One of the neighbors has one..."c**k a doodle doo! Get out of bed a$$hole, it's two (am)!"
Load More Replies... A B C 4 years ago
If I were the highest ranking rooster, I'd confuse my flock by sleeping in. F**k getting up with the earliest lights.
Yvette Desmarais 4 years ago
Roosters don't just crow at dawn. The serve as predator warning systems.
Ece Cenker 4 years ago
Truely a position that runs the high risk of pi**ing me off and ending up being dinner.
#12
TIL Sony sold its waterproof Walkman in a bottle of water to prove it was really waterproof.
N G 4 years ago
OMG , OMG, OMG ---- i didn't know there were real Walkman's. I've been buying these expensive water bottles, drinking the contents and throwing the Walkman's away.
Brendan 4 years ago
Great marketing idea. However, when the purchaser opens it for the first time, they'd have to pour it into a colander, and then wait for it to dry before using it.
Sur Mer 4 years ago
You rub them with a towel. This takes less than 10 seconds.
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Philly Bob Squires 4 years ago
I had a few sips and now I hear strange music and I don't know where it's coming from...
#13
TIL Salvador Dali once conned Yoko Ono into paying $10,000 for a single blade of grass. Yoko had offered to pay that amount for one of his mustache hairs. He substituted the blade of grass because he thought that Yoko Ono was a witch and might use his hair in a spell.
Signe Manat Hansen 4 years ago
It's Salvador Dali, would you be surprised if his hair was really made of grass?
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Roman Hans 4 years ago (edited)
Go to the original Reddit post of this to see comments from hundreds of geniuses who hate Ms. Ono and blame her for everything from Covid to World War I. They’re the reason I believe exactly zero of the hateful “facts” about her on the internet.
Monday 4 years ago
I have so many questions..why did he think she was a witch? why did she want a mustache hair? What did he use to make his stache look like that?
Night Owl 4 years ago (edited)
Yeah, I'm not sure which of the two of them is more crazy here
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Seán Baron 4 years ago
The way John Lennon first met Yoko Ono is very funny. She was installing an art exhibition of hers at a gallery owned by a friend of Lennon's. Her exhibit was a ladder in a white room with small pieces of paper hanging off the ceiling attached to string. You had go up the ladder to read what was written. So he goes up the ladder and the little bits of paper all say "please get off my ladder".
Shawna Kimble 4 years ago
Totally false. I hope your comment is meant in jest!
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#14
TIL In the 1930's a selling point for TP started by Northern Tissue company was that their toilet paper was "splinter free"
Kookamunga 4 years ago
Long ago, when there was no TP, newspaper, book pages and corn cobs soaked in water were the norm.
Kay blue 4 years ago
My primary school had tp that was like tracing paper, you had to rub it between your hands to make it soft enough to use.
Allan Breum 4 years ago
Sure it sounds ridiculous, but thinking back top the TP we had in school. Yeah, without splinters WOULD be a selling point.
Grant Barke 4 years ago
Every leaf of our toilet paper has an undeveloped picture of your enemies, just wipe to develop.
Nina 4 years ago
... water, sand, feathers, leafs, maybe a piece of cloth. 🙂
Load More Replies... #15
TIL Bruce Lee was the winner of the 1958 Hong Kong Cha-Cha Dancing Championship. He kept a card with 108 different cha-cha dance steps in his wallet and developed new moves which he wrote down in a personal notebook labeled "Cha-Cha Fancy Steps."
Vermillion Ace #443 4 years ago
Gotta wonder if that explains the fancy footwork he applied in his own movements. It kinda makes sense knowing this tidbit now.
Jo Falkinder 4 years ago
He does kind of do a box step doesn't he... The one two, one two at different angles, like you would see in a Waltz / base for most dances
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DDmaybeandor 4 years ago
I hope I remember this if I ever get a sweet small dog.
Load More Replies... Otter 4 years ago
And Jean-Claude Van Damme was a professional ballet dancer, before be began making movies.
Randy Klefbeck 4 years ago
Also a child actor in Hong Kong film since he was a bout 9 years old.
#16
TIL beavers build their dams as an instinct to stop the sounds of water leaks. If a speaker is playing just the sound of running water, a beaver will build a dam over it. This is even if it’s over concrete with no visible water, or if an actual nearby leaky water source is quieter than the speaker.
Raven Sheridan 4 years ago
Beaver & Sons Plumbing. "Because frankly my dear, I give a dam!"
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Wyn Williams 4 years ago
Not to sure on this one as I have observed beavers found as babies before even opening their eyes raised untill they can be released and they build dams nowhere near water in any available space with anything to hand
Marlowe Fitzpatrik 4 years ago
Uhm, but that could still be true? The urge to build is genetic, but usually they don't build dams but beaver-castles where they live in and sleep and raise their young. But to build a DAM, they are triggered by running water - since they need still water and especially water that provides just enough flooding-areas for soft-wooded trees like willow, alder and poplar that provide them with fresh bark and leaves and twigs.
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#17
TIL astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who as a student discovered pulsars, credits her discovery to impostor syndrome and a fear of being kicked out of college; “I’m a bit of a fighter, so I decided until they threw me out I would work my very hardest". That discovery earned the 1974 Nobel Prize.
Dina Simoné 4 years ago
Well, Imposter Syndrome should be healed after receiving the Nobel Prize.
Hanni 4 years ago
That's not how impostor syndrome works...Einstein in his later years: "the exaggerated esteem in which my lifework is held makes me very ill at ease. I feel compelled to think of myself as an involuntary swindler.”
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Bender Bending Rodríguez 4 years ago
One of my pet peeves is not giving credit where credit is due. Makes me so mad to read someone didn't get well deserved a award because of their age, gender, race, religion or position in their field. Ridiculous.
Franc Esca 4 years ago
It did earn a prize, for her male supervisor, she wasn't even mentioned
Frances Mooney 4 years ago
But they awarded the prize to the MALE scientist who oversaw the project and dismissed her findings a "interference".
#18
TIL that when his father died of a heart attack, Ronald Mallett resolved to discover time travel to see him again. He went on to earn a PhD in physics and become a professor, and has been working on plans for a time machine ever since.
Lauren Caswell 4 years ago
Oh that's a sweet and sad and noble reason to pursue science. Thinking about time in any form other than linear is beyond me, and tangents are too complex! Butterfly effect and all that
tuzdayschild 4 years ago
Somebody text me me when he gets it right. I have to go back and change a regrettable outfit I once wore to a party.
Kawaii user 4 years ago
His dad must be really special if ur gonna make a whole time machine just to see him again
#19
TIL In 1908, the Russian shooting team arrived at the London Olympics twelve days late. The Russian team had made sure to arrive a few days before the event was scheduled, but Russia still used the Julian calendar. The UK had switched to the Gregorian calendar 150 years earlier
Brandy Grote 4 years ago
The Russian government has switched to the Gregorian calendar, but the Russian Orthodox Church still uses the Julian one! Russia switch in Feb 1918 when Lenin signed the Sovnarkom decree.
Katchen 4 years ago
That’s why Catholic and Orthodox Easter falls on different days.
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Michael Parker 4 years ago
TIL there were different calendars being used back in the day from this.
Yugan Talovich 4 years ago
The Chinese calendar is still used, but in parallel. Today is the first day of the seventh month, the second day of Fall. And August 8 (Western) is Chinese Father's Day, because 8 is pronounced Ba. Now, the Tibetan calendar...
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beautiful plumage 4 years ago
.... but they just ended up changing their team name to "committee for olympic russians" so the olympics people were like, "oh. so you're not russia then? okay. no problem. you can still compete."
#20
TIL dying coral reefs lack the sound attract new fish. Speakers playing healthy reef noises at dying coral reefs increases species diversity and doubles fish abundance.
Kendra Miller 4 years ago
They also discovered that pulps or baby coral doesn't just mindless float around and just take root wherever they happen to land. They listen for healthy reefs and try to make their way there before taking root. Using speakers in dying reefs, also works on the baby coral.
Kendra Miller 4 years ago
Beavers live more in fresh water swamps and marshes, while coral live on reefs in the ocean. I suspect they rarely come in contact.
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Kendra Miller 4 years ago
Yes, while coral has a really high pitch, fish have a really low pitch and apparently go "duh" when they run into things. Which is absolutely adorable.
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#21
TIL that hippo sweat contains a chemical that has an SPF factor to prevent them from getting sunburned.
Marilyn Holt 4 years ago
They also killed nearly 500 people a year. And yet we label sharks as predators and killers. We should have "hippo week"
PurpleUnicorn 4 years ago
More fun facts: the males use their tail like a propeller to spray their poo all over his territory. They leave the river at night to graze so never get between a hippo and the water
UpupaEpops 4 years ago
It also has anti-bacterial qualities and is very efficient in healing wounds. The reason being that hippos are notoriously aggressive and fight to the blood on a regular basis. They need a very effective immune system to survive exposure to various environmental pathogens. Oh, and the sweat is red. Often what you are seeing is just sweat, not blood.
#22
TIL - Raccoons and skunks will literally sniff out a yellow jacket nest at night and dig it up to eat the yellow jackets.
Sue Lynn Chan 4 years ago (edited)
What do you mean good? They're our heroes.
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Delta the hybrid 4 years ago
Yes, and also unrelated, where might one get a pet Racoon?
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Lily Mae Kitty 4 years ago
wait, are you trying to tell us every living thing is food for some other living thing?!?
M O'Connell 4 years ago
There's a wonderful sub-genre of youtube videos you might enjoy of chickens eating wasp larvae from nests removed by pest-control professionals.
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GoddessOdd 4 years ago
I have both raccoons and yellow jackets, so I am going to quit paying the raccoons.
#23
TIL the X's often seen on moonshine bottles in old cartoons, etc. represent the amount of runnings, or how many times it was distilled.
HoneyBun Arts 4 years ago
Oh Cletus you old dog. Giving Homer a bottle with 12 or so X’s. ;) [Simpson’s Refernece]
Dagnirath 4 years ago
Sorry, any more than 6 X's and the moonshine starts to glow and eldritch runes spontaneously appear on the bottle.
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Bender Bending Rodríguez 4 years ago
Deadly is what I took it as when watching old cartoons.
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Agnes Jekyll 4 years ago
oh wow! I thought it meant it was dangerous and that the moonshine makers were illiterate.
Fritz Baumeister 4 years ago (edited)
Distilling liquor more than 3 times is pretty much a waste of time and energy. Ethanol cannot be distilled to a concentration of greater than 96% because of an azeotrope.
Brittany Beverly 4 years ago
XXX .... 'X =10 in Roman numerals.. so that's 30 not 666. Also it's how many times it was distilled. X was just an easy mark
Sue Lynn Chan 4 years ago
Funny, for someone who studies the animations, never heard of these before....
Lynn Morello 4 years ago
As most people could not read or write, 'X' was an easy mark to know.
#24
TIL that female dogs can get pregnant by multiple male dogs within the same heat cycle, then give birth to X amount of puppies per father.
Kate 4 years ago
And runts. They literally were conceived later than their littermates.
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Brandy Grote 4 years ago
Cars too. Ovulation in cats is spurred by intercourse during heat. Each kitten COULD have a different father!
Vicky Z 4 years ago
You wrote cars and i was interested to read the rest.... but it was cats😅 little disappointed i thought i would read a very interesting trivia that i didn't know
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Thomas E S Thomas 4 years ago
Humans can do that too. If a woman has multiple partners and releases two eggs they can be fertilized by each father.
Ozacoter 4 years ago
Yeah its something that can happen. But the chances of all the conditions to meet at the same time are so small that it barely ever happens. She needs to have non identical twins, have sex at the aproipate time with two men and that each man fertilises one egg (while usually the first man would fertilise both).
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Lyn Moffett 4 years ago
Yesterday I learned that twins can be fathered by two different dads. I was very confused but apparently it's true!!
François Carré 4 years ago (edited)
And even in that case, it's pretty hard to tell what the puppies will look like growing up because they all look alike regardless of who their father is. My dog's mother was supposed to be a mix between German Shepard and Husky - she ended up looking like a cheap version of the Queen's Corgis, an awkward German Shepard with very short legs. Then she gave birth to my dog, who we expected to look like her... but is more a sort of mix of Border Collie and Griffon. And in the end, it's fine, because mutt dogs are the best.
Babsevs 4 years ago
Mutts are totally the best... Especially rescue mutts
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Lord Mysticlaw 4 years ago
I rescued a litter of 4 puppies. Three looked similar, one looked absolutely nothing like the other three and was also significantly smaller and developmentally behind the others. We eventually realised the 3 had one father and the 1 had a different father and was conceived after the other 3, thus younger. Very interesting.
SlothyK8 4 years ago
My mother's daschund had a litter of six. Five looked like the miniature Poodle father, and the sixth looked like the yellow lab. Now, how a yellow lab impregnated a daschund is still a mystery, but....
Auntriarch 4 years ago
I met a Labrador chihuahua cross. My eyebrows raised, and the owner informed me that a stack of feed sacks were involved.
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Crochet lady 4 years ago
A million years ago when I was 9 this happened to our dog. She gave birth to 13 puppies, half were black and white tuxedo wearing pups and the rest were brown. They were the cutest things I've ever seen, though mother was overwhelmed and refused to nurse them. We fed them baby cereal every morning before school, 13 bowls all lined up and a mess was made!
#25
TIL comedy legend Mel Brooks was an uncredited producer of The Elephant Man, released in 1980. He was left off the credits for fear that fans would believe the movie was a comedy.
Yoinks! 4 years ago
This is also true of Frances (1982) and David Cronenberg's The Fly (1986). He also kept his name off the comedy My Favorite Year (1982), possibly because he didn't want people to think it was HIS sort of comedy.
Nevits Yibble 4 years ago
One of my favorite movies... although I give it negative points for inaccuracy. Merrick led quite a different life than the movie depicts. I think his true story is far more interesting
Cass Thomas 4 years ago
If I had known Brooks had anything to do with the movie, I wouldn't have watched it.
Suzanne McHenry 4 years ago (edited)
I am a blood relative to Joseph Merrick, his Mums side is my Dads side of the family, we are cousins, family name Potterton. Leicester, UK is our birth city.
InfectedVoice 4 years ago
We watched this film in school as part of English studies, very sad.
#26
TIL of Research during 1950s all-male combat aircraft assignments revealed that a woman's voice was more likely to gain the attention of young men in distracting situations. Joan Elms voice was used for the automated voice warnings for Convair B-58 and was named "Sexy Sally" by the pilots.
Otter 4 years ago
And that's why the voice of the starship Enterprise's computer is female. Really!
mcborge1 4 years ago
That was Majel Barrett, one of four roles that she had in the franchise.. Number one in the pilot, nurse Chapel, Lwaxana Troi and of course the computer.
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InfectedVoice 4 years ago
Same as sat-nav, most is a sultry low female whisper of "turn left in 100 yards"
#27
TIL of Vasili Mitrokhin, a KGB archivist who kept a vast collection of handwritten notes on top secret files. When he defected to British Intelligence in 1992, he brought six trunks of notes with him that exposed most KGB activities in the West during the Cold War
M O'Connell 4 years ago
I'm surprised the KGB wouldn't have known that he had 6 trunks worth of notes.
François Carré 4 years ago
If he was at the end of the chain (meaning that nobody else would bother asking what happened to the archive after him), was really discreet, knew all the tricks for being at the heart of the KGB system and carefully took one note at a time, it was pretty feasible. Still dangerous, but feasible.
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Moo Moo Futch 4 years ago
He had scanned every one and was hiding them under his summer house before defecting. He then wrote a load of books with author Christopher Andrew.
Kimberley Gayle Thomas 4 years ago
my hand is hurting thinking of all those possible notes. Was a typewriter ever used instead?
Paweł Duda 4 years ago
Well actually he made notes about Russian intelligence material dating back to even before Soviet union. Early 1900 if i remember correctly. There is a book with over 1000 pages, but incredibly hard to read (thousands of names and dates, dull writing style) but very interesting overall.
#28
TIL that the reticular activating system is the part of the brain that sorts through all the billions of pieces of information our senses take in and then allows through the important stuff. It is why after you a buy a red sedan, you now see red sedans everywhere when you didn't notice them before.
NamiKoa 4 years ago
Interesting, thank you - I hadn't known there was a name for this phenomenon. Apparently it's also called the "frequency illusion".
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Mare Freed 4 years ago
Whenever I learn a new word, I find myself hearing it frequently afterward.
#29
TIL that the "Monopoly Man", the guy in jail and the policeman on the Monopoly Board all have names: Milburn Pennybags, Jake the Jailbird and Officer Mallory
Aleksandra 4 years ago
Also, the game was originally created to show the negative aspects of monopolies. And there were two rule sets for the game, one where everyone was rewarded when wealth was created, and second where you were supposed to crush opponents.
Sky Render 4 years ago
Oh I hope someone recorded the former ruleset somewhere before it was lost forever to capitalistic fervor! I love the idea of a cooperative Monopoly game. Finally, a way to make it not ruin friendships!
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Nadine Bamberger 4 years ago
It's originally been called "The Landlord's Game" and has been invented by Elisabeth Magie in 1904 as "a practical demonstration of the present system of land grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences".
Jacalyn Margittay 4 years ago
You can find all the streets of Monopoly in Atlantic City except Marvin Gardens
Peter Smith 4 years ago
It is said that nearly everybody remembers monopoly man had a monocle although he didn’t.
#30
TIL that the Red Bull energy drink was originally invented by a duck farmer from Thailand as a hangover cure (called Krathing Daeng in Thai) before being bought over by Austrian businessman Dietrich Mateschitz who discovered it on a business trip in 1987.
Kira Okah 4 years ago (edited)
Chaleo Yoovidhya - said duck farmer - was the co-owner of the company. He became a billionaire!
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Vasana Phong 4 years ago
I never knew this, I remember as a kid in Laos, we went to visit my Aunt in Thailand, i got nauseous , my mom gave me this lil drink, when I drank it here in the states as an adult, I remembered the taste, but from where?
#31
TIL that there is a spider called the Darwin's bark spider whos web is 10x stronger than kevlar. it is the toughest biological material ever studied..
VeninTheNonBinaryRogue 4 years ago
Wow that’s awesome. We should figure out how to use it or something
#32
TIL in Greenland, it is illegal to bring any other breed of dog north of the Arctic Circle in order to maintain the purity of the Greenland Dog.
Mar Nadal 4 years ago
If it's a healthy breed of dog, that's a good thing, so no one will be able to change the traits of the breed, like a flat snout with respiratory problems and other things like that
GoddessOdd 4 years ago
That the AKC doesn't recognize the breed is a GOOOOOOD thing. The AKC has brought more misery to more animals than probably any other US group. The AKC condoned and encouraged things like culling the healthy 'Rhodesian' ridge backs, because the ridge is a detrimental defect, and breeding King Charles Cavaliers so their brains are too big for their skulls. The list of breeding atrocities, not to mention surgical mutilations resulting from AKC breed standards is mind blowing.
Brandy Grote 4 years ago
That pure of pedigree and still not recognized by the AKC. What a shame.
#33
TIL the idea for the McDonald's Happy Meal originated in Guatemala. Created by manager Yolanda Fernández de Cofiño to simplify the menu for busy parents, it was later brought to the attention of the Chicago office who developed it further and deployed it in the U.S.
#34
TIL it is not recommended to flush a scorpion down a toilet, as scorpions can survive being under the water hence they may come back out that same toilet or crawl up the drains and into your home
Miss Frankfurter 4 years ago
I've found that a book works well and then have the pest control people come to find the nest and deal with it.
#35
TIL that MIT created a system that provides cooling with no electricity. It was tested in a blazing hot Chilean desert and achieved a cooling of 13C compared to the hot surroundings
Daniel Marsh 4 years ago
Not terribly imressive compared to the doorways or walls made of wet leaves that are common across the globe
#36
TIL Leonardo da Vinci wrote “all the branches of a tree at every stage of its height when put together are equal in thickness to the trunk”. In 2011 Christophe Eloy investigated and found that trees which followed Leonardo's rule would be the best at resisting wind-induced fracture.
#37
TIL in 1999, Tom Green hung his own unauthorized piece of art in the National Gallery of Canada (which remained untouched for days) with the added twist of later coming back and vandalizing it to the horror of onlooking patrons.
Vermillion Ace #443 4 years ago
Oh goodness, this is a man who was a real piece of work back then...o.o;
T Lee Mac 4 years ago
I remember when he painted his parents house plaid and when he sold their house and when he had a marching band come through in the middle of the night to wake them.
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#38
TIL Anthony Rossi who founded Tropicana Products in 1945 was an Italian immigrant who arrived in the US with $25 and did not know English. He developed an orange juice pasteurization process to allow transport from the factory in Florida to as far away as New York starting in 1970.
#39
TIL of a study to determine contamination levels for computer keyboards in the average office setting. One keyboard had to be removed after testing because it was found to be five times dirtier than a toilet seat, home to 150 times the acceptable limit of bacteria, and was a health risk to its user.
Andy Acceber 4 years ago
Seems legit. In high school biology, we had to swab for germs. The grodiest places were keyboards, wrestling mats, and one poor kid's cast.
Mike Crow 4 years ago (edited)
Myth busters did an episode about bacteria and were surprised to find toilet seats had very little bacteria.
JennyLaRue 4 years ago
Yes, I've never really understood why they're always the measurement for dirty/germy things to be rated against. Bums aren't going round touching things to pick up germs, and anything that comes out usually goes straight down the loo, not over the seat.
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DarkAngelNic 4 years ago
I wipe down my keyboard and mouse with a disinfectant wipe at the end of everyday. May be a bit excessive but I rarely get sick.
Tiny Dynamine 4 years ago
People overexaggerate the issue of bacteria. I've never heard of anyone getting ill from using a keyboard. A toilet seat isn't necessarily dirty, either as it's basically just had human skin touching it. We need to be exposed to bacteria to help strengthen our immune systems.
Miss Cris 4 years ago
You touch with your fingers your face, mouth, eyes... I did a project in a school, where children shared computers, and I got an eruption on my face. Since then, I wash my hands every time after I touch any other person keyboard or mouse.
Load More Replies... Premislaus de Colo 4 years ago
well I kinda not believe of keyboards getting that dirty by themselves...
Yoinks! 4 years ago
I wash my hands thoroughly before leaving the toilet, but a lot of my coworkers do not.
Load More Replies... #40
TIL There was an elevator driver strike in NYC in 1945. Up until then people were afraid to use automatic elevators but the strike drove their mass adoption. The elevator driver job driver demand started to decline which ultimately meant their job is lost forever.
Yoinks! 4 years ago
Automation and technological advances are job destroyers, but also inevitable and essential to progress. Imagine still relying on lamplighters and horse-drawn carriages today.
Allan Breum 4 years ago
Funny thing is, the jobs are not exactly "destroyed", but become other kinds of jobs.
Load More Replies... Sky Render 4 years ago
And this is why you should never get a job that involves doing something that isn't actually very hard for your everyday person to do on their own. Self check-outs are starting to do this to cashiers here in the US, and the pandemic is making it happen even faster...
Leigh C. 4 years ago
That's very hard to come by. Anyone can do anything on their own if they learned how and are able to get the materials.
Load More Replies... #41
Til Russian fishermen learned to farm caviar as early as the 12th century and for centuries it was considered nothing more than cheap peasant food, served with porridge and eaten by the bowlful
Scagsy 4 years ago
That's how I see it today. It's horrible. Whoever marketed it as a delicacy pulled a right stroke.
A B C 4 years ago
IMO, it's the same with a lot of "delicacies". Frog legs only taste good if seasoned right, if not, they taste of nothing. Snails are the same. Oysters taste like watery, salty snot. I could go on...
Load More Replies... Carol Emory 4 years ago
Early American colonists found it very easy to catch lobster. They were so good at it and ate it so often, they grew sick of it and begged for something else to eat.
John L 4 years ago
They hardly had to catch them...they literally were all over the beach, so they fed them to prisoners as punishment.
Load More Replies... DarkAngelNic 4 years ago
Same thing with lobsters (aka ocean cockroaches) they use to feed them to prisoners back in the day.
Isabela Ivan 4 years ago
I like its taste and I m not really syrprised...back then there were plenty of sturions to catch
Dorothy Parker 4 years ago
Even inexpensive caviar is delicious. We have scrambled eggs and onions topped with cancer all the time.
V33333P 4 years ago
Red caviar is much yummier than black caviar imho. I love that stuff on toast
Miss Cris 4 years ago
Red caviar is from salmon. It's a matter of personal preferences. I prefer red because it's more different of other conserved fish foods I eat more often.
Load More Replies... #42
TIL tarantula hawk wasp larva creates a small hole in a paralyzed spider's abdomen, then enters and feeds voraciously, avoiding vital organs for as long as possible to keep the spider alive. It emerges several weeks later as a wasp.
V 2000 4 years ago
this one is "the xenomorph of wasps", i hope nobody makes a prequel
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Allan Breum 4 years ago
If there is a god, its a weaponsgrade psychopath... Which would be rather fitting, considering most modern religions...
Load More Replies... mcborge1 4 years ago
Caterpillers are a big target too for some Ichneumon wasp species.
Load More Replies... Dorothy Parker 4 years ago
They are very beautiful. A plant we bought had a tarantula in it. Within a few weeks we saw a tarantula hawk.
John Baker 4 years ago
The tarantula hawk also has the most painful sting of any known insect, but Justin Schmidt, creator of the Schmidt Pain Index, awarded the #1 spot to the bullet ant because the pain from the wasp's sting lasts only a few minutes while the bullet ant's sting lasts for hours.
#43
TIL Olympic swimming is only timed to hundredths of a second because the pools aren’t built to the millimeter tolerances necessary to measure thousandths of a second
fire bug 4 years ago
There were a couple of ties in this years Olympic heats.
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Jyri Hakola 4 years ago
As a manufactuing engineer it's kind of cute when builders are referring millimeters when discussing tolerances :)
magnadar 4 years ago
Same goes for me as a measuring technician. People assume i "check it accurately to the millimeter" while i check it for micrometers :)
Load More Replies... #44
TIL the FICO credit score was started in 1989 and people used to be able to get approved for a mortgage with a letter of recommendation from their priest
KatHat 4 years ago
US credit scores are a scam. Why does paying years of rent on time not help your credit score rise? Why does having no credit card count against you? There are so many ways these scores are meant to push you into spending money and using credit. Fine if you want to do those things but you should NOT be penalized if you don't.
Tuna Fish 4 years ago
Try paying of a 20 year mortgage. My FICO score dropped 45 points because that was my longest credit history. So when it was paid off it just went away like it was never a part of my score. So no benefit for 20 years of on time payments.
Load More Replies... Dirk Daring 4 years ago
I paid off my credit card and soon learned that having a zero balance lowered my FICO score, because I didn't have any revolving debt. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
#45
TIL: the US Gov't made a deal with the Italian Mafia to ensure that no German or Italian saboteurs snuck in through the New York port/docks by providing information to the US Navy. They also guaranteed no dockworkers would strike, therefore ensuring a constant line of supplies leaving to the front.
Brandy Grote 4 years ago
Mafia leaders had plans to assassinate Hitler, and the mayor of New York ask the Mob to beat up Nazi sympathizers in the US. They did it for free! Back when fascism was bad... https://allthatsinteresting.com/meyer-lansky-punch-a-nazi
Hugh Willie Mungous 4 years ago
Before any of you get the idea that that bunch of murderous, parasitical thugs for once showed an altruistic trait and did the right thing - consider this. Mussolini, in the 1920's instituted an absolutely brutal campaign against the Mafia in Sicily which, to a very large degree, broke up the Mafia (though not completely nor with finality). The Mafia hated and feared fascism and Mussolini. So it suited them down to the ground to ally themselves with the Allied liberators all the while amassing power, influence, money and assets. After the war they were in a very strong position in Sicily and in America - thanks, in the main, to their having been raised up by the circumstance of war and the fact that they picked the winning side (though they had little choice). The result of this was decades of the Mafia dominating crime in Sicily, Italy and America. It's only thanks to the bravery of the police and the population in both America and Italy that their influence has been weakened.
#46
TIL A missing DJ’s body was found nearly mummified within the walls of a bar soon after Winnipeg instituted a no smoking in bars law. Before the ban, the smell of cigarette smoke covered up the smell of his decomposing body.
Monty Is Fiennes 4 years ago
I find this very hard to believe... I have smelt a dead rat in the wall... it STINKS!!! Cigarette smokes reeks.... but more than a decaying body????
A B C 4 years ago
The smoke tricks our brain into omitting other smells as smoke indicates fire, which is prioritised over other smells due to being an imminent danger. That's the common theory about why "lighting a match after taking a dump" gets rid of the smell.
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Kelli Goldstone 4 years ago
I'm from Winnipeg. It's true; it was all over the news. I'd been in that bar before the body was found and it didn't smell. The bar was called the D Machine.
A B C 4 years ago
What happened to the bar afterwards? Did they ever find out who did it, and why?
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Artoonist Corine 4 years ago
Being around smokers alters your sense of smell as well. I grew up in a family of smokers (proud to say I never picked up the habit!) Once I moved out to college, I could smell things I never smelled before!! So maybe w/ a depleted sense of smell of the bar goers....
Yvonne Dauwalder Balsiger 4 years ago
See https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/historic/31418414.html "Drine also said most people thought the stench was caused by spilled beer and cigarette smoke. However, when the city's smoking ban came into force in September, more people became aware of the smell." So the poor dude stank up the place before, people just blamed it on the wrong things. Apparently it wasn't foul play, he crawled there himself for reasons unknown. They couldn't test for drugs anymore.
#47
TIL Bangladesh, the 8th largest country in the world (population of 170 million), is the most populated country to have never won an Olympic medal.
Andy Acceber 4 years ago
To be fair, they've only participated in 10 Olympics and sent a grand total of 49 athletes to all those Olympics combined. Russia, the 9th most populous country, has sent 333 athletes this year alone.
Tiny Dynamine 4 years ago
To date, in the current Olympics, San Marino has a better medal count than both Mexico and Argentina, with 1 silver and 2 bronzes.
#48
TIL that “freestyle” is a swimming event, not a swimming stroke. The name of the most commonly used stroke in freestyle races is the “front crawl” but swimmers are free to use any stroke they prefer.
Martin Weier 4 years ago
Australian Crawl. Invented by our Surf Lifesaver community as the quickest way to reach a person in distress. Circa 1890s
KatHat 4 years ago
What do you think makes it obvious? Many people think the stroke is the freestyle because it's what everyone uses during that event.
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What do you think ?
Brenda Slattery 4 years ago
Would love to read but can't, font too small.. prob issue with apple
TheKnightOwl 4 years ago
TIL BP is just a middle man, and I should just go straight to Reddit for all their stories.
Rissie 4 years ago
BP is easier. It harvests whatever gets a lot of attention on Reddit. Reddit is more fun ;)
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Brenda Slattery 4 years ago
Would love to read but can't, font too small.. prob issue with apple
TheKnightOwl 4 years ago
TIL BP is just a middle man, and I should just go straight to Reddit for all their stories.
Rissie 4 years ago
BP is easier. It harvests whatever gets a lot of attention on Reddit. Reddit is more fun ;)
Load More Replies... CharlesAHoward 4 years ago
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