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The day can be gloomy, hard, long, or totally irrelevant, but if you can learn something on that day, even the simplest fact, then your day is complete. And there’s no better place to do that than our beloved corner of Reddit, the ‘Today I Learned’ community that has people sharing interesting things they learned on the internet.
And keeping in mind what a vast place this world wide web actually is, there’s always something new to discover! Some things are totally useless yet eyebrow-raising, others are seriously game-changing, so there’s a little for everyone to get their brain cells in shape.
Scroll down, upvote your favorites, and be sure to check our previous TIL posts here, here, and here.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
TIL, The Netherlands gives Canada 20,000 tulips every year as a thank you for protecting the Dutch royal family in ww2
Bobert Robertson 4 years ago
As a Canadian man who's wife loves tulips, I think I end up buying about 10% of these every year
Miss Frankfurter 4 years ago
I also believe that where they were living through the war was also declared Dutch territory. Also it was 2 Canadian soldiers, one of them who became a legendary author, and the other soldier spoke German, who went AWOL to a Nazi headquarters and planted the concept of food drops for the Dutch and for the Nazis to back off and not shoot them down.
Agnes Jekyll 4 years ago
I've never heard that story--do you have any details (and I'll see if I can look it up)?
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Corey Gray 4 years ago
Yet most of the bulbs Dutch tulips are grown from in recent times come from Skagit Valley WA, USA (a botanical disease damned near destroyed native sources, a few decades back, and they still haven't fully recovered)
Alexei Arntzen 4 years ago
Oh no, that's an unfortunate waste of resources for unnecessary transportation. It's a nice gesture though
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RELATED:
#2
TIL that Sea Urchins are called Sea Urchins because Hedgehogs used to be called Urchins until about the 15th century. Sea Urchins are Ocean Hedgehogs.
Bobert Robertson 4 years ago
I wonder if when fish see me they say "hey Jimmy, look it's one of those land walruses"
Ozzie Ogawa 4 years ago
And here in indonesia we call them bulu babi, which translated to pig's fur
Roxy Eastland 4 years ago
I wonder why transient children were known as street hedgehogs, in that case
Bernadette Circle 4 years ago
Urchin was probably derogatory slang before they called the children that
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Mazer 4 years ago
Current nomenclature has changed sea gulls to gulls ( they are often found hundreds of miles inland ), jelly fish dropped the fish in their names because they are not fish, now they are jellies. Starfish are now sea stars for the same reason. I love the sciences. Dogfish are sharks because they travel in packs and two of the largest fish, the whale shark and the basking shark are not sharks at all and they only feed on plankton sized critters.
Bacony Cakes 4 years ago
It sounds like an animal History makes up after they buy out Octonauts.
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Son of Philosoraptor 4 years ago
And that's why a British street kid would be called an Urchin...ah hah!
#3
TIL the self-absorption paradox asserts that the more self-aware we are, the less likely we are to make social mistakes, but the more likely we are to torture ourselves over past mistakes. High self-awareness leads to more psychological distress.
Luther von Wolfen 4 years ago
The happiest people I know have no self-awareness whatsoever. They're also sociopaths.
Daria B 4 years ago (edited)
Eheheh, true, have an upvote from me too! But don't be fooled, sometimes people like these can have their happy facades as well. Knew someone like that. Always trying hard to keep the positive vibe, even at the expense of other people sometimes (yeah, I was a victim of his oblivious and unintentional micro-sabotage as well, for the sake of "happiness"). He was great at first impressions, but he was so terribly lacking the ability of empathy. Overheard him confessing to his friend how sometimes he hates himself. Lots of his laughter was very faked and forced too.
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Samantha PandaNotBored 4 years ago
This sums me up in a sentence ! It is so hard be in my own head
François Carré 4 years ago
I've been thinking for a very long time that it's impossible in life to be happy and smart at the same time. You have to pick one and deal with it - happy at the cost of being dumb, smart at the cost of being depressed. And honestly, I have'nt been able to make my choice yet.
Demongrrrrl 4 years ago
I'm dumb and depressed, which sucks since I am self-aware too.
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Casey Burns 4 years ago
This is true. It's learning to be empathetic always no matter the situation. Which then leads your "negative bias" to present itself in past mistakes in order to learn. However. Set the cup of water down. Much like burdens. The longer you hold onto them the heavier they become.
Sarah 4 years ago
Oy, this explains a lot. [Before clicking "POST," starts to worry this comment is silly.]
Bernadette Circle 4 years ago (edited)
This is the kind of stuff I was thinking about! If you say you identify with this fact, you are saying you’re self-aware and make few social mistakes and are therefore bragging!
Load More Replies... In the midst of everyday life, it often seems like there's not enough time for learning new things, taking up a new hobby, or doing something outside your comfort zone. But staying curious about new things may open up new horizons for all of us.
So to find out more about curiosity and how we can all become better at learning new things every day, Bored Panda spoke with Helen Marlo, a licensed clinical psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst who provides psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and consultation. Helen is also a Professor of Clinical Psychology and the Department Chair at Notre Dame de Namur University.
#4
TIL that tigers are nearly invisible to their prey, who see orange as green. Tigers are orange because mammals can’t produce green fur, and orange was the next best thing.
Downunderdude 4 years ago
Next best thing? 'I'll have green fur, please' 'Nope, sorry we don't do green fur' 'Oh bugger. Well, I suppose orange, then'.
Caro Caro 4 years ago
BUT make it exciting so add a couple of stipes mate .... no worries.
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Leo Domitrix 4 years ago
I hate when they make it sound like evolution went to th e paint store.
Akalvin 4 years ago
Well, at least mammals try. This is a "Green Acouchi": Bildschirm...ff-png.jpg 
Osgood_7 4 years ago
It's hairs are striped, the bottom and top are black and the middle is yellow
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Sarah 4 years ago
I KNEW it was a good idea to check the comments before posting that!
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Ellie Rosser 4 years ago
London zoo has an amazing tiger enclosure with tinted glass that demonstrates this fact. It is so freaky to see the tiger disappear when you look at it through the glass.
John Braines 4 years ago
I don't think this is true. Tigers are multicoloured with stripes etc and in their natural natural habitat range it allows them to merge with the background to get close to their prey. It does not rely on their prey being colour blind. Humans find it difficult to spot them as well.
Bambang Lioe 4 years ago
Check out the documentary 'Life in Colour with David Attenborough', available in Netflix. It is explained there.
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Kenny Kulbiski 4 years ago
Okay, how do we know the prey see orange as green? Did the tigers have a meeting and all decided to go orange? What color were they pre orange?
Nevits Yibble 4 years ago
Because we can see what types of photoreceptors their eyes have and which wavelengths the cells support. It's not really that big of a mystery
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Rannveig Ess 4 years ago
It's thought that most tigers probably only see dull greens, blues and reds. Some only see in black and white. Animals like Zebras and Impalas are almost invisible to tigers due to this striping. Once they lock on the movement, however, they can follow that .
#5
TIL of the Ovitz family, not only the largest family of dwarfs ever recorded but also the largest family (12 people ranging from a 15-month-old baby to a 58-year-old woman) to enter Auschwitz and survive intact.
Suzy the observer 4 years ago
I read the WP article about them. Mengele was a monster who never admitted any wrongdoings. Pure evil.
CatWoman312 4 years ago
Didn’t American horror story base a character off of him? I believe it was one of the earlier seasons
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Signe Manat Hansen 4 years ago
Yes yes, you're a decent person. This isn't controversial.
Load More Replies... Rannveig Ess 4 years ago
https://www.ekathimerini.com/culture/207233/book-on-the-ovitz-family-s-auschwitz-survival-story-now-available-in-greek/
#6
TIL Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. He was frustrated with the fact that he had to go and ask his coworkers what data was on their computer so he can add it to his computer which led to him creating an application that became the world wide Web.
Hotdogking 4 years ago (edited)
What do you mean. This pic is super cereal
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Kisses4Katie 4 years ago
But the military was using arpanet from the 70’s and I believe that was the framework.
smugdruggler 4 years ago
He also refused to patent the idea and made sure that it would be free to all. Pretty sure he had no idea what it would become.
PeachPossum 4 years ago
The photo shows the monitor displaying Netscape's Mosaic, precursor to FireFox. Gads, I remember doing archie and veronica searches on the world wide web. In those days, we launched the world wide web with Gopher and viewed everything in glorious green text on a black background. Mosaic changed everything. It was the killer app of its day.
Brandy Grote 4 years ago
Lol, I was shopping online in 1987. DARPANET was fun before all you scoundrels showed up!
“It helps to understand what messages we have internalized about curiosity as well as the responses received from others when we express curiosity. For example, many internalize that being curious means they “do not know something” or are not intelligent. That inhibits curiosity and its negative effects are compounded because it limits further learning,” Helen explained.
She continued: “Similarly, curiosity can diminish when others respond with judgment, criticism, rejection, or shame rather than encouragement, wonder, openness, and affirmation.”
#7
TIL that Tupac Shakur renamed his publishing company name from "Ghetto Gospel Music" to "Joshua’s Dream" after meeting with 11-year old Joshua Torres with muscular dystrophy who died 45 minutes after Tupac left his bedside
#8
TIL, that Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Queen's tribute for Elvis, took Freddie Mercury 10 minutes to write while taking a bath
2x4b523p 4 years ago
The most creative thing I've ever done in a bath was winning imaginary argument
Bender Bending Rodríguez 4 years ago
WOW... You're good. I can't even win those arguments.
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Dave Van Beurden 4 years ago
And Dolly Parton wrote Jolene and I will always love you on the same day
Miss Frankfurter 4 years ago
In an interview that you can see in the latest Bee Gees documentary "One Night Only" the three were asked how they were able to come up with the massive number of songs they have written. Barry said he believed that all music is somewhere out there and some people are better receivers than others. That there are times when it just comes to you and that's it." Think of Paul McCartney writing "Yesterday". Got up in the middle of the night, sat at the piano and wrote the music. Used the phrase "Scrambled eggs" so he could remember the opening notes. Freddy was just open to the musical universe and the universe sent him a gift.
Ahimsa Soul 4 years ago
Some people are gifted, naturally inclined or have good training in a specific task. To write a lot of songs doesn't mean they are all good and different, but some people manage it just great, like Elton John and the lyricist (whose name I forgot) he works with.
Load More Replies... Pusfarm 4 years ago
Except for the minor detail that he died roughly 3 years before Crazy Little Thing Called Love was released, it would have been interesting to hear Elvis record a cover of it.
Donnie Mc0 4 years ago
The minor detail in your comment is that its wrong.... in every detail.
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Jon Steensen 4 years ago
I doubt that Bohemian Rapsody was written in 10 minutes as it takes almost as long just to perform.
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Jennifer Norton 4 years ago
that is an awesome song and so clearly influenced by Elvis. I have always loved it.... love Queen too!
#9
TIL that in India, there is a species of giant squirrel that have multicoloured fur, with with varying shades of orange, maroon and purple. Their bodies measure 36in from head to tail – double the size of their grey relatives – and they can leap 20ft between trees.
Riley Quinn 4 years ago
Malabar giant squirrels are not only colorful, they're twice the size of an eastern grey squirrel, ~36 inches from head to tail.
According to the clinical psychologist, research suggests that “individuals who feel secure in relationships are more likely to feel and express curiosity including feeling free and confident to explore others’ viewpoints; pursue a new hobby, or learn a new subject area.”
Among many new things we can learn every day, language is one of the most beneficial ones. Helen explained that learning a new language has many benefits including improving cultural awareness and increasing empathy.
#10
TIL two high school students found that despite advertising claims that “the blackcurrants in Ribena have four times the vitamin C of oranges,” the drink contained almost no trace of vitamin C and one orange juice brand had over three times more. The company were taken to court and fined NZ$217,500.
KJ 4 years ago
Ribena's reply was apparently "and I would have gotten away with it too, If it weren't for you meddling kids!"
WilvanderHeijden 4 years ago
In the US Ribena would have filed a counterclaim that in order to prove that, the kids obviously had to determine what was in the drink, which would be industrial espionage. So the kids would owe Ribena at least $250 million in damages.
Bender Bending Rodríguez 4 years ago
HAHAHA... True, won't surprise me if something like this happened in great ol' USA.
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Devil's Advocate 4 years ago
Vitamin C is (now?) added to ribena, but fresh blackcurrants do indeed contain large amounts of vitamin C, probably just destroyed in the modern production methods
Bambang Lioe 4 years ago
Rather because the concentration of blackcurrant juice is quite low to effectively provide enough Vit C. Too much blackcurrant won't taste nice and will reduce the profits!
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Hannah Edwards 4 years ago
The blackcurrants probably did have more vitamin c than oranges prior to being processed into ribena, so technically true maybe?
F. H. 4 years ago
I'm just puzzeled how the company could mess this up. Vitamin C is neither expensive nor is it easily destroyed during production or spoils easily. On the contrary, vitamin C is often just added as a preservative in many foods, including sausages. If you want much in your product, you just put it in, no big deal. It's just very sour.
Chewie Baron 4 years ago
In the UK, 95% of all commercially grown blackcurrants is bought by Ribena.
Samantha PandaNotBored 4 years ago
Hahah my first,e brother had to have his teeth removed when he was young, as the vile mother of his never gave anything else , so his teeth rotted away .
#11
TIL that cigarette filters were designed with color-changing chemicals to give the illusion that they filter out toxins. In reality, the filters have little to no health benefits.
Jon S. 4 years ago
I am cautiously skeptical about this. I did an experiment at school, drawing cigarette smoke through a cotton wad. There was a blob of tar that accumulated on the wad, showing it was possible to reduce the tar in the smoke with a filter.
Kira Okah 4 years ago
The filters do filter out tar effectively (demonstrated on a smoking machine), but it doesn't filter out the byproducks of smoke (like carbon monoxide) or the harmful substances in tobacco.
Load More Replies... Kira Okah 4 years ago (edited)
I've read this paper, the one linked by the OP. Cig filters actually did start as a sincere attempt in the 50s/60s to filter out nasty stuff, before it was realised in the mid/late 60s that the harmful substance was actually the tobacco itself, which is when it switched to being a gimmick because smokers had started to believe due to the cig company's ads that filtered cigs were healthier and wouldn't buy unfiltered ones whether or not there was any difference. It's a crazy mess that didn't start off trying to mislead but their own advertising backfired so now it is intentional misleading.
Crochet lady 4 years ago
Both of my parents were life long smokers. Dad died, when I was 8 and he was 50. He spent the last year of his life connected to an oxygen tank as his one surviving lung slowly failed. My mom left a widow at 40 with 5 kids to feed. She survived until she was 70, spent the last 6 months of her life in hospital, leg amputated, not able to speak because of her tracheotomy. She didn't know us at all, the blood poison stepped into her brain. Yay cigarettes!
Janine B. 4 years ago
I'm sorry about your loss. My grandma didn't quit smoking until she was 70. In her last years she suffered from really bad COPD and died suffocating slowly. It must have been horrible for her. Although she made it to 80, her life was more suffering than anything else.
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S. Tor Storm 4 years ago
Uhm, well.. it obviously filters out some of the tar. Try using one of those mouth pieces for cigarettes, they get sticky fast.
Sigrid Johanesdóttir 4 years ago
Please beautiful people, everyone can stop smoking, nowadays there are a lot of nicotine more or less safe alternatives and I know you have the Strenght to do it, no matter how long you've been smoking or what you've been through you can do it
allan dorfling 4 years ago
Everybody is giving addiction the blame but there are some like myself, who is less addicted to tobacco but more to the ritual of smoking...it does relieve angst... Over weekends I don't touch a smoke but at work my smoke break has often stopped me from quiting
Riley Quinn 4 years ago
I've only smoked straights, which everyone considers more dangerous. Yet, I've read numerous articles stating that filtered cigarettes may actually be worse.
Rob Woodman 4 years ago
Same. Filters get drawn more deeply into the lungs. And the lights and ultra lights deeper still. Unfiltered don’t get drawn as deeply and (most) people don’t smoke as many.
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TIL there is a herd of wild zebras in central California that can be seen off of Route 1 near San Simeon.
Otter 4 years ago
Are they escapees from the Hearst Castle private zoo, by any chance? Because that's why there are feral hippos in Columbia, an abandoned private zoo.
Nathan Pogorzala 4 years ago (edited)
They reported that the Columbian hippos are reverting the ecosystem to its more natural state. The area has been without mega fauna since the arrival of man and now things are going back to its more perfect state. All thanks to a drug lord.
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Paddling Panda 4 years ago
And the lion has some narcissistic tendencies...
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Sunshine Sunshine 4 years ago
Also: there are a bunch (i know: that's very detailed) of wild hippo's in Colombia thanks to Pablo Escobar. They are thriving
Philenzortia 4 years ago (edited)
Today you learned that Columbia is a city in the United States and Colombia is a country. 🇨🇴 We are not Columbians we are Colombians. There's a difference.
over it already 4 years ago
It appears there's going to be a herd in Maryland, too (or have they managed to catch them?)
jpaul 4 years ago
there is a herd of lamas in southern France near where i live. deep in the rural area. first time i saw them, i was coming out of a fog cloud. It was totally unreal. Also in Colombia (south america) you have hippos in the rio magdalena. they're hippos who escaped Pablo Escobar private zoo, and thrived. they are now the bigget hippos population outside Africa. they became so numerous that it was thought of regulating them. But the locals firmly opposed to it, because they are attached to the animals
You may also hear that learning languages has the ability to prevent diseases like dementia, but Helen warns that data on that is mixed. “However, very generally speaking, there is a “use it or lose it” principle when it comes to our brain health. We are less likely to “lose it” when we “use it,” she explained.
#13
TIL about a New Jersey history professor who was telling a story to his class about how a ranger saved his life in a canyon at night in Texas in 1940. The ranger had managed to track him down and coincidentally walked in to the classroom right as the professor was telling the story.
#14
TIL - Ben and Jerry's has a physical graveyard that they retire old flavors to, and you can actually go visit it.
Eppe 4 years ago
Pear flavoured ice cream sounds good. But not as good as any flavour with chocolate in it.
Monday 4 years ago
Do you think chocolate and pear would be any good together?
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Jo Johannsen 4 years ago
My all-time favourite was Totally Nuts. One genie-wish would go to a lifetime supply.
Springy The Non Binary Boi(They/Them) 4 years ago
I'll tag along on the road trip!
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Burs 4 years ago
Nothing like their cookie dough or salted caramel icecreams. For 'natural' flavours like raspberry or vanilla i prefer artisanal brands. But for these diabetic inducing ones B&J is the best
Rob Woodman 4 years ago
Lol. Ben and Jerry’s is like the OG artisanal. You kids 😉🤣🙄
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PurpleUnicorn 4 years ago
What happened to Chery Garcia? Haven't seen it in seems like forever
Paddling Panda 4 years ago
I still see it around. Might be touring with the rest of the Dead, but I still see it from time to time.
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Charlotte Leaver 4 years ago
My favorite, Cherry Garcia, Cherry Ice Cream with Cherries & Fudge Flakes. But its expensive here. :(
Rob Woodman 4 years ago
Vanilla with chocolate covered almonds pecans and walnuts IIRC
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#15
TIL some people suffer a "weekend migraine" or "let-down headache" on weekends (or other break from a 9-to-5 weekday job) due to a decrease in stress.
Steve 4 years ago
wait, what? So THAT'S why I get kick-ass migraine attacks at the weekend? And the way to cure it is to get MORE stressed at the weekend? Right, who designed the Human Body? I want to make a formal complaint...
ChimeraBubbles 4 years ago
Actually lol'd. I'm a sufferer of this too, I'll join your complaint.
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Caro Caro 4 years ago
I sometimes had those on the second day of my vacations. Destressing..( and I loved my work).
Burs 4 years ago
My partner has the same. He gets sick every time that he takes holidays.
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Elizabeth Elliot 4 years ago
This can also be caffeine withdrawal if you get up later after a lie in!
Cactus McCoy 4 years ago
Here. I do. This rreeallyy sucks. My non-existent level of vitamin D did not help.
Leo Domitrix 4 years ago
Weird fact from an actual MD: This is why pepole who retire NEED A HOBBY. Gong from full-time work to full-time not-work can actually stress some people into a stroke or heart attack.
Moreover, “engaging in learning, especially something new like a language, that stretches our minds can stimulate and support brain activity which can support brain health.” Helen said and added that “research supports that learning and keeping our brains active can help slow the progression of cognitive decline as seen in dementia,” she concluded.
#16
TIL of Tullimonstrum Gregarium, aka the Tully Monster. An animal so strange, that despite having thousands of fossils, we don’t know whether it was a vertebrate or an invertebrate. To add to the strangeness, fossils of this creature have only been found in one fossil site in the world.
M O'Connell 4 years ago
The information in the caption is a bit out-of-date. The Tully Monster has a notochord (early evolutionary revision of the spine) and is therefore a vertebrate. Victoria E. McCoy et al. The ‘Tully monster’ is a vertebrate. Nature, published online March 16, 2016; doi: 10.1038/nature16992
mph seti 4 years ago
It does look like something someone made in Spore. Anyone else remember that game?
Burs 4 years ago
I am quite certain that the problem is that the fossils are only part of the animal so its very difficult to deduce their look. Like it used to happen to anomalocaris.
Becky Samuel 4 years ago
There are many fossils in very good states of preservation. The look is definitely correct. This is from a time very early on in animal evolution when many, many different body plans were being 'tried out'. A lot of them were uncompetitive and died out rather rapidly. There's no way (currently known) of knowing how this species was related to other species.
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Debra Robinson 4 years ago (edited)
I would think it was a vertebrate, maybe with at least just mostly cartilage like a shark. But what's up with those rod things???
#17
TIL Harrison Ford was frozen in The Empire Strikes Back because, unlike Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill, Ford had only signed on for two films. After the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Lucas didn't think Ford would return for the 3rd Star Wars film, but left him frozen just in case.
Silre 4 years ago
No, Harrison Ford was actually frozen in carbonite, didn't you read the post?
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#18
TIL that the vampires were not inspired by bats. Bloodsucking bats were only discovered in Latin America in the 16th century, while the earliests vampires stories were from 12th century Europe.
Kira Okah 4 years ago
Vampire stuff stemmed from differences in understanding of decomposition and probably premature burials
Ancsuri 4 years ago (edited)
It also stemmed from Porphyria. Porphyria is a group of liver disorders in which substances called porphyrins build up in the body, negatively affecting the skin or nervous system.The types that affect the nervous system are also known as acute porphyria, as symptoms are rapid in onset and short in duration.Symptoms of an attack include abdominal pain, chest pain, vomiting, confusion, constipation, fever, high blood pressure, and high heart rate.The attacks usually last for days to weeks.Complications may include paralysis, low blood sodium levels, and seizures. And yes, sometimes they were just buried during the paralysis state. Attacks may be triggered by alcohol, smoking, hormonal changes, fasting, stress, or certain medications. If the skin is affected, blisters or itching may occur with sunlight exposure. Porhyria was common in the middle ages due to the lack of food.
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Roxy Eastland 4 years ago
Well, du'h. Vampire bats were named after vampires, not the other way round.
Melia Janssen 4 years ago
Bram Stoker took the story from Romanian emperor Vlad De Dracul (thus the name Dracula) who had a particularly evil method of execution where he would throw his prisoners onto long pointed stakes which had been dug into the ground thereby impaling them. It's also where the story came that vampires are to be killed by driving a stake through its heart because that's how Vlad The Dracul killed his prisoners.
Mosheh Wolf 4 years ago
Vice versa - they are named "vampires" because they drink blood, like the vampires from the old legends.
Riley Quinn 4 years ago
The term vampire comes from the Turkish word 'uber' or witch. Vampire bats were named after vampires from old stories.
#19
TIL the longest surgery ever recorded was performed in 2001 by a team of 20 doctors; it took 103 hours (more than four days) to complete.
Michelle M 4 years ago
It happened in Singapore and was for the separation of female conjoined twins.
Susan Green 4 years ago
Thank you for the info. I was wondering what kind of surgery took that long.
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Monday 4 years ago
For those curious, it was a separation surgery for conjoined twin girls. They were joined at the head and their brains were more interconnected than expected hence the long surgery time with doctors working in shifts. Both girls miraculously survived the procedure but had varying degrees of impairment. One (Ganga) died aged 7 of pneumonia and meningitis but the second (Jamuna) is still alive from what I can tell.
rspanther 4 years ago
And I bet they didn't have a problem wearing masks during the operation.
Terry Fergusson 4 years ago
And yet everyone involved managed to wear a mask with no complaints. Why can't you for 20 minutes in a store.
Sigrid Johanesdóttir 4 years ago
Heroes, I'm surprisingly glad that it was in Singapore, my best friend went through a 10% survival surgery in Singapore and she's with me nowadays because of the amazing team I am so glad there are amazing surgeons in the world
Jesus Christ 4 years ago
Theres a person in my school who refuses to put his mask over his nose all the time. So every single damn time I see him with his mask down I look at him and grin "put your mask up." started 3 weeks ago.
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MargyB 4 years ago
My longest scrubbed was 9 hours! The surgeons swapped in and out but I remained scrubbed with my instruments the entire time
#20
TIL that due to the fact that they spend the majority of their lives on sea ice, polar bears are classified as marine mammals, like dolphins, seals, and whales.
Mazer 4 years ago
Polar bears do very well in the water, will swim for hours and go miles off shore.
Stephanie IV 4 years ago
They’re in mortal danger, pack ice melting they now have to swim too far; their babies drown, they themselves perish - it is a silent catastrophe. My heart weeps.
Russ Kincade 4 years ago
Polar bears aren't white, they are black! Their fur reflects light down to their black skin which is then heated by absorbing the light.
smugdruggler 4 years ago
And their fur isn't white either. It's made of hollow fibres that scatter the light, making it appear white.
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littlesaresare 4 years ago
What classification? I'm confused. This certainly isn't a taxonomic classification. What sort of classification is being used here?
Bexxxxx 4 years ago
As a BC resident I’m like “…..obviously?” 😂 I think we’ve considered them marine for a while
Bexxxxx 4 years ago
But now I’m thinking about the polar bears in Sask/Manitoba…..same deal? Anyone know?
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v 4 years ago
Did you know that Polar and Grizzly bears are close enough together on the evolutionary scale that they can interbreed and that there is a, once definitive, line between their boundaries to their respective south and north? This once definitive line is becoming muddy as climate warms and each is forced to expand their forage ranges.
#21
TIL the most powerful commercial radio station ever was WLW (700KHz AM), which during certain times in the 1930s broadcasted 500kW radiated power. At night, it covered half the globe. Neighbors within the vicinity of the transmitter heard the audio in their pots, pans, and mattresses.
oktopus 4 years ago
During the 1980s I used to live in a town as few km away from what was basically the major radio broadcasting tower for the country (if you look at old-style radio European radio receivers you can see the name of the town), and we could listen to the radio just by picking up the landline phone.
Sawdust 4 years ago
Some wavelengths of radio waves can travel much longer distances because they can reflect off of the ionosphere layer in earth's atmosphere. But, the sun interferes with this effect, shortening their effective transmission distance during the day.
Load More Replies... Skara Brae 4 years ago
1930s? Imagining everything in the kitchen blasting out swing dancing music like crummy bluetooth speakers.
alwaysMispelled 4 years ago
Probably the springs inside of the mattresses.
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Laura Williams 1 year ago
Probably annoying if broadcast late at night. Other people thought they were being haunted. Cool though.
Craig Reynolds 3 years ago
And we worry about cell phones! Just to give a slight idea of how much power that is, when I was in my late teens and CB radio was popular I had an illegal 500-watt tube base linear amplifier. For reference, CB radios were limited by law to 4 watts for mobile and home units or 5 watts for handhelds. I was able to be heard for hundreds of miles and if atmospheric conditions were ideal, for thousands. My entire neighborhood would hear me on their house phones, radios, and TVs. I used to impress my friends by plugging a test antenna into the back of the amp (basically a 1/8" diameter solid copper rod), sliding a hotdog on it, keying up the microphone, and cooking it from the inside out in 30 seconds. Basically, it was microwaved from the inside out. It probably was safe being in the room at the time but hey, kids, right? Anyway, that radio station was 1,000X more powerful than what I used and I could microwave hotdogs! I can't imagine the damage that station was doing to people.
#22
TIL Purkinje Effect. Which states that as the lights dim, our eyes get more sensitive towards blue end of the spectrum. This is the reason why in movie theaters, chairs are usually red. In low light, red is the first color the human eye loses sight of, hence enhancing our viewing experience.
SuperChicken 4 years ago
Me, too. As they say, "you learn something new everyday" - and yes, we do.😁
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Nagoya Pub Quiz 4 years ago
Same when you go scuba diving, the colour red disappears first due to having the shortest wavelength.
Sarah Gershaw 4 years ago
ALSO, the color red doesn't effect your night vision. If you need to use a light at night but don't want to mess up your ability to see in the dark, use a red light. That's why they're common on headlamps.
Scarlet Blackfox 4 years ago (edited)
enhancing our viewing experience and prohibiting us from finding our seats again once we’ve gone to the bathroom.
Anne Mitchell 4 years ago
... and increasing the chance of missing your seat and landing on the floor if you enter the theatre after the lights go out.
Les Izmore 4 years ago
And I thought it was because red stimulates hunger and the snack bar is where the profit is made
#23
TIL that Vermont ambulances stock maple syrup for 'oral glucose' administration.
Crochet lady 4 years ago
When I was pregnant with my twins I had gestational diabetes which is common with multiples. I ended up in labor for two straight days and wasn't allowed to eat anything but ice chips. But the second twin B was delivered I was handed a cup of grape juice to drink because apparently my blood sugar dropped rapidly. Having not had anything but ice chips (and no sweets for months) for so long, that was the most delicious thing I've ever tasted. I still remember how good it was 20+ years later.
Raven DeathShade 4 years ago
My mother has had gestational diabetes for the past 2 or 3 kids. She's only had singles, so far. I'm really worried about what would happen if she got pregnant again, bc each pregnancy she gets more and more tired...but on the other hand, she was told to have her tubes tied after her second kid (me) or she'd die after the next kid. 9 kids later, we're still waiting XD. (This is confusing. My family is confusing. I am a very stressy person. Please forgive. Thank.)
Load More Replies... Alexandra Davis 4 years ago
Why can't British ambulances do this? Glucagel tastes disgusting!! I'm going to make a suggestion to my local ambulance trust!
Bacony Cakes 4 years ago
It's because we in Britain aren't very good at comfort. Go look at the railways for two seconds.
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AnnaBanana 4 years ago
I spend a fortune on pure Vermont maple syrup (it's expensive and hard to get in Australia). I love it so much, I could drink it from the bottle! Could...but don't...
Lily Mae Kitty 4 years ago
I lived in VT for a few years and damn, they are VERY serious about their syrup! Ever since living there, I only buy real maple syrup. That crap in the plastic bottle is garbage compared to the real deal.
Sarah 4 years ago
I will definitely try this. I wonder what the optimum dose is?
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Vivian Ingram 4 years ago
That actually probably a very good way to treat hypoglycemic attacks- sugar gets in the system very fast that way
#24
TIL Due to casino distributions, every Seminole Indian child born is a multi millionaire when they turn 18 years old.
Watching 4 years ago
As a Native American although not from this tribe I'd like to say: the sad thing is these children are brought up with this money and they turn out to be absolutely nothing but drug addicts and alcoholics. Having money of that kind is not good for someone that just turned 18 years old.
Monday 4 years ago
Genuine curiosity here, do you think it would be better if each child was made to meet some sort of milestone before having access to the money? Such as getting a degree with decent grades or working a normal job for X amount of time?
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lenka 4 years ago
Why have you used a photo from the 1940's when the tribe were still restricted to the reservation and living in poverty? Might be more appropriate to choose a photo from thier own website https://www.semtribe.com/stof.
Riley Quinn 4 years ago
Sounds mighty impressive on the surface, but compared to all they've had ripped from them, land, culture, language, etc., this is merely a drop.
Watching 4 years ago
It's casino money. They bank it and then give it to them when they're 18.
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Karon 4 years ago (edited)
As a Muscogee Native and not from the Seminole tribe, I think it's sad that someone would make a blanket statement and say, "...these children are brought up with this money and they turn out to be absolutely nothing but drug addicts and alcoholics." Making a blanket statement about and entire tribe of children, families, homes, etc., is disgusting and only perpetuates the stereotype that Natives are just drunks who can't manage money. I'm glad the Seminole Tribe has the funds to help it's people. Also, please, take that other person's words with a grain of salt. They do not speak for any Native except themself. They especially don't speak for Seminoles.
Requiem 4 years ago
Always have poor money management. In Canada theres something like this from land ownership. Its gone as fast as any lotto winner
Miss Frankfurter 4 years ago
Where I live in Canada our main rez on the island got together with a couple of others and bought a massive farm so they could build a casino. Its now rez land and they have the say of what gets done with it. Unfortunately it may not be used to really benefit the tribes and I am so sad for that. It would provide so much potential for the young people and conditions on the rez. But partly it does make me smile a bit as the white people flock to somewhere to play games of chance to win money where the odds are always with the House. Great! The white man comes at basically handing money over to the Indiginous people and have "fun," doing it. I just wish it would be put towards some amazing possibilities that are there.
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Requiem 4 years ago
All being multi millionaires you could be taking over the State you live in and sticking it up white peoples asses.
#25
TIL about two Irish boys aged 13 and 10 who in 1985 ended up in New York after sneaking onto a train and a ferry in Dublin, a train to Heathrow, and a flight to JFK, all without being caught.
KJ 4 years ago
and now you can't take more than 100ml of a fluid onto a flight, slight upgrade in security.
Nathan Pogorzala 4 years ago (edited)
Because the combustible force of 100 ml or less does not have the effect of taking down an aircraft. It does not matter if people are hurt, the system is in place to protect the aircraft, not the passengers. Coming from someone (me) inside that industry.
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Crochet lady 4 years ago
My brother was an aspiring comic book artist and he would often sneak train trips from Maryland to New York to hand deliver his artwork to Stan Lee, starting when he was 14. My mom didn't find this out until he was an adult. Lol. She would have died of fright and worry had she known. He never got his dream job but was told his work was impressive, just not his speed. He was a perfectionist and took forever to draw an entire comic. He was extremely talented though.
Sandra Charlot 4 years ago
Meanwhile here in France parents of 16th yo still driving them to school ... just saying
Rene Accel Cardones 4 years ago
Did the kids mix with the passengers aboard the aircraft? Did the stewardesses discover them?
Riley Quinn 4 years ago
Now, that's an exciting trip! They're parents must have been freaking out.
#26
TIL that the Concorde airplane flew so fast, if you left London (or Paris) in the evening flying west towards New York, to the passengers in the plane, the sun would actually appear to begin rising again shortly after reaching cruising speed. The plane flew faster than the Earth's rotation.
Caro Caro 4 years ago
I was in a plane in Heathrow when the last flight of concorde was ready for take-off. The pilot told us. Pretty neat.
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Jen Pocock 4 years ago
My husband's uncle was a captain in Concorde and once flew a group of people around the world celebrating the new year/new millennium multiple times, toasting with champagne while the plane refuelled.
François Carré 4 years ago
It was a big status symbol for rich people in the 1980's to try it at least once. Then you could brag about having arrived in New York earlier than your flight departure in Paris.
Robert T 4 years ago
I've sat on one. It was an exhibit at my local airport aviation viewing park. Not sure I'd have found it very comfortable, as it is quite cramped, but just the experience of flying on something at Mach 2. Did you know it grows over a foot in length when flying supersonic?
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Ploploplop 4 years ago
Also, they generated so much frictional heat with the air at speed, the frame would warp and separate. It would return once the plane slowed down. One of the retired planes had a captain's hat placed between two pieces of bulkhead from its final flight and is now wedged firmly between the two pieces.
BuzzCola 4 years ago (edited)
I remember my American friend flatly refusing to believe that Concorde was faster than the F18 fighter (like the one Tom Cruise flew in Top Gun). It also flew at the same height as the U2 spy plane whose pilots wore space suits. And if you want to see why it only flew routes over the sea search 'concorde breaking the sound barrier' on youtube - its a ~30s video. Truely awesome and it would have been welcome to fly over my house all day long - but not so much at night..
Randolph Croft 4 years ago
I could be wrong, but I understood the Concorde to be only first-class, and they restricted it's routes because it was too noisy to be flying over cities.
Janice Blaufox 4 years ago
You are not wrong. I had an uncle who lived in Connecticut and his business partner lived in Rome. He used to fly on the Concorde to Rome, put in a full business day and return home in the evening.
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#27
TIL In the original ending to "Pretty Woman", Richard Gere's character throws Julia Roberts character out of his limo in a dirty alley and tosses $3,000 on top of her
Sheila Stamey 4 years ago
Why did this hurt my feelings? It did, but why? They obviously changed it or it never happened, but the mere thought is enough to just give me a major twinge about one of my favorite movies!
Rider 4 years ago
I want a setting for movies with alternate endings where each time I watch it I don't know which ending I'll see.
Maurettis 4 years ago
It would've been a much better ending. Remember: rich people don't change
Grant Barke 4 years ago
I doubt Richard Gere would sign on with that ending. Mel Gibson would have done it for free, lol.
Shushadei 4 years ago
Realistic, but with an end like this the whole film should have had another atmosphere. No romantic comedy anymore...
G R 4 years ago
The original ending predates the decision to re-write the movie to turn it into a romantic comedy.
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#28
TIL it took 4 people only 4 days to replicate a typical 2.5 tonne Block of the Great Pyramid, using the same tools found in an abandoned ancient quarry (copper chisels, wooden mallets, etc.)
mph seti 4 years ago
That depends on how hard the material you're working is. Copper isn't as hard as iron or steel, but it's still harder than limestone.
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Jon S. 4 years ago
Bearing in mind, with practice they'd probably be able to halve the time it took. You always have to account for inexperience of the operators in archaeological reconstructions. There was an example of this where two women from Africa proved archaeologists' estimates of how much grain could be ground on a Bronze Age quern were off by a factor of 10, because they'd used similar querns their whole lives.
Charlotte Leaver 4 years ago
I think TIL should come with source, a lot sound fake or not the whole truth.
#29
TIL there's a mineral element (Promethium) so rare that it's estimated there are 500-600 grams of it in the Earth's crust
Muff_Fluff 4 years ago
Hey what about the elements that can only be created in a particle accelerator? Those are nonexistent except for their remains (for the ones with short half-lives), and the ones being studied.
AJ the panda. 4 years ago
It's glow is nice. But most glowing elements are dangerous and this one is radioactive.
Riley Quinn 4 years ago
All of Promethium's isotopes are radioactive. There are about 500–600 grams naturally occurring in Earth's crust at any given time. At any given time. Guess I'll have to do more research.
#30
TIL Titan is the only moon in the solar system with a thick atmosphere and the only world other than Earth that has surface liquid in the form of lakes, rivers and oceans
Rannveig Ess 4 years ago
Arthur C. Clark wrote that the Aliens said, "“ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS, EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE. USE THEM TOGETHER. USE THEM IN PEACE.” I believe that 2010: Odyssey Two
Devil's Advocate 4 years ago
Isn't there something weird about Titan where it shouldn't be as warm as it is, and scientists aren't sure why, or was that a different moon?
Riley Quinn 4 years ago
Methane's he reason, which keeps the moon warm (relatively). Some folks think Titan is the most hospitable extraterrestrial world within our solar system. Maybe humans should learn some respect before moving to a new planet/moon.
#31
TIL Procter & Gamble argued for years that Pringles were NOT potato chips, but Britain’s Supreme Court of Judicature ultimately determined that they were -- requiring Procter & Gamble to pay $160 million in taxes.
Sue Hazlewood 4 years ago
Tax dodging corporations are nasty. Also makes you wonder what is in the chips.
Kira Okah 4 years ago (edited)
Their argument was that potato crisps were sliced potato and theirs were formed potato flakes and therefore a snack instead. They are salted and flavoured formed potato flakes, nothing sinister or magical.
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Devil's Advocate 4 years ago
And that's exactly why they argued, didn't actually care what they were called, just wanted to avoid tax
Fluffy Griffin 4 years ago
I learned (like a week ago) that the reason some shoes have a fuzzy sole is so they are placed in the slipper tax bracket instead of the sneaker one which is significantly higher.
Riley Quinn 4 years ago
And I'm telling you they are NOT potato chips! They're a thin layer of fried mashed potatoes shoved into a tube.
Amanda Hunter 4 years ago
Now we need the rest of the big corporations to start paying their share.
Edison Michael 4 years ago
P&G is a weird company. They make soap, detergent, diapers, deodorant... and Pringles. As the song goes: ♫ "One of these things is not like the others." ♫
#32
TIL Cyprus was going to host the first particle accelerator in the Middle East, but ministers chose to spend the money on hosting the Miss Universe pageant instead.
Robert T 4 years ago
Which is one of the reasons why it has a large British airbase on it and a listening station at the top of Mt Olympus.
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Moneythink 4 years ago
That should have been the first question everyone asked.
Load More Replies... Sunshine Sunshine 4 years ago (edited)
Because of Cyprus' political inclination and EU membership it is a European country although geographically it is technically Middle Eastern.
James 4 years ago
TIL Cyprus is in the Middle East...who else googled that to check the OP? lol
Roxy Eastland 4 years ago
Hmmm, I wonder if that decision was made by diverse committee, an all female one, or an all male one . . .
#33
TIL that the Sun is 99.86% of all mass in our solar system. Every other planet, asteroid, and comet only adds up to 7/50th of a single percent.
Aliquid 4 years ago
I hate fractions like that. "7/50th of a single percent" means nothing to me. 1/2, 3/4, 1/10... yeah those make sense, but 7/50... I can't visualize that without having to stop and think. If you say 0.14%, that means something to me, or just say "about 1/7th of one percent"... which is close enough to 7/50.
Colin Matthews 4 years ago (edited)
Yup. We are basically just dust. Actually Jupiter does us some favours by "grabbing" a fair few of the larger local asteroids that were heading our way. The huge gravity of Jupiter captures them and stops them from travelling any further. Fun Fact-roughly every 60 million years Earth gets hit by a stellar body with an impact big enough to change the dominant life species. That may seem like a long time, but in galactic time frames its like the beat of a catchy song, boom, boom, boom. We may have dodged a bullet recently or got off lightly with Chelyabinsk.
v 4 years ago
Space is big. Space is empty. The sun is very, very, very, etc. (https://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html) far away. The sun is also very, very, etc. much larger than what we can imagine based on our daily lives.
Marvin HoG 4 years ago
Space is big. Really really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.
Load More Replies... Nevits Yibble 4 years ago
Compared to Earth it is. Compared to a lot of other stars it's actually quite tiny
Load More Replies... Madzdad the bard 4 years ago
Amazing that in the 80's there was an alignment (of sorts) where the eight major planets were all on the same side (within 90 degrees) of the sun and many people believed that it would cause the end of the world with the mass of all the planets pulling on the sun. It had about the same effect as a fly landing on a human.
#34
TIL Krabby Patty is a veggie burger, as he series' creator, Stephen Hillenburg, expressly stated that the patties do not contain any meat.
Beck(formerly Becca/Gizmo sq) 4 years ago
I mean it makes sense. How would they get a cow down there?
Yara Balabanova 4 years ago
But there is still cheese on it, how did they manage that then 🤔
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Ivan Ilic 4 years ago
The secret ingredient is crabby meat. Mr kraby is only of his species did you notice?!
A_BadlyDrawnBearPic 4 years ago
That exterminates the theory that the Krabby Patty is made out of Mr. Crabs' relatives. Great!
Rand0m_Cat 4 years ago
Although hints are made that it contains crab. Mr. Krabs at one point takes a bite of one and says, "So that's what I taste like."
ᑭIᗰᑭᒪE ᖴᗩᑕE 4 years ago
He was referring to him tasting old because a fish complained about her kid's krabby patty and said "It's old and dried out, like that man over there."
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#35
TIL that despite not existing for the past 30 years, the Soviet Union still holds the most Olympic gold medals for wrestling.
Riley Quinn 4 years ago
Still SMH over removing one of the original Olympic sports, yet walking remains. Just how does an athlete walk differently from than the rest of us mortals?
#36
TIL in 1984 javelin thrower Uwe Hohn threw a distance of 104.8m and became the first and only athlete in history to break the 100m barrier. Shortly afterwards some changes in the design of javelins were implemented and the records had to be restarted, turning his mark into an "eternal world record".
Chris 4 years ago
How do you find something to be offended by in a nice positive post like this?
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#37
TIL The crew of the space shuttle Columbia knew of the catastrophic re-entry failure, and that they were going to die for 40 seconds before rapid cabin depressurization
A B C 4 years ago
We actually don't know that. An excerpt from an article by history.com: "It’s likely that the Challenger’s crew survived the initial breakup of the shuttle but lost consciousness due to loss of cabin pressure and probably died due to oxygen deficiency pretty quickly. But the cabin hit the water’s surface (at more than 200 mph) a full 2 minutes and 45 seconds after the shuttle broke apart, and it’s unknown whether any of the crew could have regained consciousness in the final few seconds of the fall."
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SuperChicken 4 years ago
I remember this devastating news. I not only thought of the astronauts, but their families and loved ones, as well. Still breaks my heart.
#38
TIL that there is an FAA regulation called the 'Sterile Cockpit Rule', requiring flight crews to abstain from discussing anything other than topics pertinent to the aircraft and the flight below 10,000 feet.
Robert T 4 years ago
Probably about the same level as all electronic equipment must be turned off in the cabin as well. Take off and landing is when the aircraft is a greatest danger from other aircraft, terrain, bird strikes and weather conditions. All focus must be on what the aircraft is doing and not what Aunt Sally got up to last night. The crew need to listen to air traffic control, for alarms and be monitoring their instruments, even in the plane is on auto-pilot. Although probably not for that reason, it will also help to keep the cockpit voice recorder clear of unnecessary background noise as well.
Nathan Pogorzala 4 years ago
That is one of the main reasons flight 3407 crashed. They did not follow this rule.
tuzdayschild 4 years ago
That has to be challenging, to say the least, on flights 6 hours or longer.
J. F. 4 years ago
10.000 feet are 3 kilometres - most planes fly way higher than that
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Beny Amare 4 years ago
I'd imagine its because thats way below cruising altitude, so until a plane is able to maintain that or land its not safe to divert attention from critical things
Jo Johannsen 4 years ago
Would that be due to the possibility of their communications being overheard (electronically)? Or...?
Mazer 4 years ago
Jo - no, it is due to the fact that humans are so easily distracted. Human error still accounts for many airline crashes
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#39
Today I learned that there was a species of humans that were extremely short, named Homo floresiensis, and nicknamed 'hobbit'. They were found on the island of Flores, Indonesia, and the remains of a skeleton found tell us that they were around 1.1m tall.
Burs 4 years ago
They are fascinating because part of their features were quite modern but some were quite primitive. The fact that they arrived to Flores means that they could make rafts very early on. There is also a similar species in Philipines Homo luzonensis
Klas Klättermus 4 years ago (edited)
Maybe they could build rafts but it is impossible to know. I doubt that every animal species on every island built rafts to get there!
Load More Replies... lara 4 years ago
There was a similar tribe in South Africa. They were hunted to extinction by tribes from the North who considered them the "ultimate sport."
Klas Klättermus 4 years ago
Do you have any article, name or anything to support this? It is of course possible, but how recent did they live if you know that hunting them as considered the "ultimate sport"?
Load More Replies... Tiny Dynamine 4 years ago
I think they might have migrated to Japan before they went extinct. :P
#40
TIL when Muhammad Ali lost to Larry Holmes in 1980, then 14-year old boxing prospect Mike Tyson spoke to Ali on the phone, promising to avenge the loss. He fulfilled the promise seven years later, knocking Holmes out in four rounds. Tyson later called it a highlight of his career
fire bug 4 years ago
One of my favorite all time stories to tell is the time Ali punched me in the chin. Full disclosure, I have met him a few times over a couple weeks prior through work and was at the movie theater with some freinds. He recognized me and tapped me on the shoulder and punched (tapped) my chin when I turned around. My friends freaked out that he "knew" me. He was a great man!
#41
TIL in 1914 the first residential air conditioners cost between $10k and $50k (or $120k to $600k inflation-adjusted). By the 1960s, they were as low as $416 (or $4k inflation-adjusted). Since then, heat-related deaths in the U.S. have declined by 80 percent.
James Doe 4 years ago
And the idiocy of having A/Cs turned so low that you need jackets indoors with scolding heat outside.
MCathenaE 4 years ago
Don't judge me for living in a meat locker & I won't judge you for being hot & sticky😆
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Virginia W 4 years ago
And I believe they were originally invented to control humidity in a print shop.
mph seti 4 years ago
Pollution has to do with industrialization in general, not just A/C.
Load More Replies... #42
TIL black stones in Go are manufactured to be slightly larger compared to the white ones, to compensate for the optical illusion of white objects looking bigger when placed adjacent to black objects.
Jon Steensen 4 years ago
...and the facades of the Greek temples were atually slightly curved to make them look more harmonic, and the sculptures were out of proportions to compensate for the foreshortening due to perspective when viewed from the ground.
Bacony Cakes 4 years ago
Maths sucks, but it sure can make beautiful things.
Load More Replies... #43
TIL Toyota only made 2 convertible 2000GTs. They were specially made for use in a James Bond movie, because Sean Connery was too tall to fit in the standard model.
Orion C. 4 years ago
They also cost not just an arm and a leg, but your kidney and spleen as well. The curvature was just too advanced for the 60s.
Load More Replies... Isabel Care 4 years ago
I'm only 5 ft 7, but I am too tall for most cars. I can look over the top of the windscreen in convertibles
#44
TIL Almost 25% of non-driving teens in a survey say they’re not licensed because they’re scared to drive a car. 40.2% of teens think driving is scary and 58% of parents are scared of them driving
Jo Johannsen 4 years ago
Driving is scary. Putting aside rush hour traffic, road rage, police pursuits, etc., just think about a puny human wielding a 5-10 thousand pound vehicle at 70 MPH among a pack of similar symbiotic pairs.
mph seti 4 years ago
Driving is also proof that we can cooperate really well as a species if we want to. Think about it. Driving IS dangerous AF, and it's amazing there aren't so many more accidents.
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Mazer 4 years ago
My Father taught us that driving is one of the most dangerous things one could ever do in their lives, it also affords many freedoms. So he paid an ex- race car driver to teach us to drive.
Grant Barke 4 years ago
Are you available for hire. I need a driver to take me to the bank and to take me away as fast as you can drive,
Load More Replies... over it already 4 years ago
Good. It's the ones who don't feel the healthy & necessary fear that worry me. Being scared of something doesn't mean you don't do it, or are crippled by fear; it just keeps necessary caution in the forefront of your mind.
Random Anon 4 years ago
I guess the world has changed. I can't wait to get my own car when I was young. And as soon as I did, it opened up a whole new world of possibilities (and mischief).
Peko 4 years ago
Or 40-ish% of your fellow teenagers thought driving was scary. As a former teenager I'd say that the last people teenagers would tell that they thought driving was scary would be their fellow teenagers.
Load More Replies... #45
TIL that anime characters shout out their attacks because manga is black and white and it would be confusing for readers to tell what is going on.
Marlowe Fitzpatrik 4 years ago
And what does the color of the drawing have to do with them shouting? I undersstand the reason lying in samurai-culture, but what's that got to do with drawings and black and white? Is color not as loud? Please educate me!
#46
TIL that Franz Kafka starved to death because the tuberculosis in his throat would not allow him to eat.
#47
TIL the natural birth rate of boys to girls is 105 to 100, but it evens out by reproductive age because more boys die in childhood.
Jon S. 4 years ago (edited)
This is only half the story. At a population level, in times of high nutrition, women give birth to more boys. In times of low nutrition, they give birth to more girls. The difference is thought to be driven primarily by frequency of sexual intercourse and the different length of time male/female sperm survives in the womb, with male sperm favouring frequent intercourse but dying off quickly. However, there is no solid proof of this. On an evolutionary level it is thought that most women have children, so women are a solid genetic investment in a harsh environment. Most men do not reproduce, [EDIT: I'm wrong about this, see below] but some men have hundreds or even thousands of children, so it makes sense gambling on a male child when times are good.
AnnaBanana 4 years ago
"With male sperm favouring frequent intercourse"...so, nothing changes when they're born, either!
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Jon S. 4 years ago (edited)
Also, it used to be the case that more men died off before the age of 18, meaning for almost all of human history there were more women than men on the planet. However, recent declines in violence, the rise of health and safety and modern disease prevention mean that for the first time in history there are now more men than women.
Hannah Edwards 4 years ago
Is there any impact on some countries having a preference for male children?
Load More Replies... #48
TIL Lewis Hamilton pledged £20m ($27.5m) to set up the Hamilton Mission in an effort to improve groups who are under represented in motorsports due to its extremely high cost entry barrier. Out of the 770 drivers in F1 history, he is the only black driver.
Lee Macro 4 years ago
Lewis Hamilton is the only black driver to have "raced" in F1. Driver called W***y T Ribbs was the first black person to drive an F1 car in a 1986 test for the Brabham team
Sarah Richardson 4 years ago
You’re mixing up two things. He started up the Hamilton Commission which was to look into why ethnic minorities were underrepresented in motorsports. The result of this was a charity called Mission 44 which he pledged a startup of £20m to, this is to fund and improve diversity in STEM subjects at higher education levels.
Skara Brae 4 years ago
I'm not a racing fan, so i can't help pondering how that much money might have been better applied, such as scholarships.
tuzdayschild 4 years ago (edited)
So young people who aspire to be F1 drivers are less worthy of help to reach their dreams than those who want to be lawyers? I'm not a racing fan either, by the way.
Load More Replies... #49
TIL that before the advent of refrigerators, Russians would put frogs in milk to keep it from going bad
Dolly Bun 4 years ago
My grandad was Russian. I grew up stories of vodka and food being stored outside in the snow so frankly I think the frog this is quite unlikely.
John L 4 years ago (edited)
No to mention, every living thing produces waste and I doubt frogs would be so courteous as to wait for them to be removed from said milk, to do their business.... ;)
Load More Replies... Steve Barnett 4 years ago
How do you even stumble across that? “Comrade 1: “My milk keeps going sour”. Comrade 2: “This might sound like a crazy idea, but why don’t we stick a frog in it?”. Comrade 1: “ “.
Bacony Cakes 4 years ago
Comrade 5: Ok, who pressed the off switch on Yuri Andropov?
Load More Replies... Chris Wade 4 years ago
Right, I think I'm talking for everybody when I say... if there's a frog in my milk, that's already bad, mmmmhmm no thank you.
Ksenia M 4 years ago
So, I always assumed that was a myth, but apparently some scientist had free time on their hands and figured out that it actually does work, most likely due to anti-fungal and anti-microbial mixture that naturally covers the frog's skin. This method was also used in the Southern Europe and in the Middle East. Take that info with a grain of salt though, because I couldn't find the actual peer-reviewed paper, just websites citing it.
Dasha Slepenkina 4 years ago
So I was positive that this is not true because I am Russian and have never heard of this. Also in the part of Russia where I am from, frogs are not seen as particularly clean animals so I would have a hard time believing that people put them in milk. However, after searching around on Russian sites, it does appear to be true - that being said, the wording is misleading. This was in ancient times, so yes - before the advent of refrigerators. But this sentence makes it sound like it was happening right before refrigerators were invented, which is not the case.
Vera Mzega 4 years ago
Dead frogs?? Wouldn't they just hop out Or they'd bottle the frogs in ? They'd die Unsettling
Otter 4 years ago
Or did they use live frogs? Is there something in frog pee that keeps milk from curdling???
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Lauren Caswell 4 years ago
Oh QI is great! I didn't think they could replace Stephen fry when he left, but Sandy toksvig is brilliant
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Kendra Miller 4 years ago
I learned that there is a bacteria? Parasite? That exists naturally in swamps. This bacteria pretty much kills off most frog populations when it infects a new swamp. This bacteria was shipped around the world by us, because we used frogs as pregnancy test, e.g. a suspected pregnant woman would pee on a frog to find out if she was pregnant. So yay for the invention of the modern pregnancy test, but unfortunately most frog populations are still slowly disappearing as a result. Bonus downer, frogs are supposed to ribbit in sync in order to make themselves sound bigger than they are and to make sure predators can't pick them out of the crowd. When their rhythm is disrupted by a loud noise like a car passing it can take hours for them to get in sync again. In the mean time a few have been picked off. TT
Kendra Miller 4 years ago
P.s. I will look up my sources if anyone wants.
Load More Replies... jpaul 4 years ago
here's my contribution. the french word for fox was goupil until the 19th century. when the book 'le roman de renart' (the novel of renart) came out the book which had a fox hero called renart in it became so popular that the french decided to adopt the word renart instead of goupil. renart being a super sly hero in the book. with time it turned to renard with a D, actual french word for fox
Burs 4 years ago
If you do not like it then don’t click on the articles. What is the point of coming here just to whine?
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Joyce Blodgett 2 years ago
In other words, more useless trivia that adds nothing at all to the knowledge needed to live a relatively good life.
Lauren Caswell 4 years ago
Oh QI is great! I didn't think they could replace Stephen fry when he left, but Sandy toksvig is brilliant
Load More Replies... Kendra Miller 4 years ago
I learned that there is a bacteria? Parasite? That exists naturally in swamps. This bacteria pretty much kills off most frog populations when it infects a new swamp. This bacteria was shipped around the world by us, because we used frogs as pregnancy test, e.g. a suspected pregnant woman would pee on a frog to find out if she was pregnant. So yay for the invention of the modern pregnancy test, but unfortunately most frog populations are still slowly disappearing as a result. Bonus downer, frogs are supposed to ribbit in sync in order to make themselves sound bigger than they are and to make sure predators can't pick them out of the crowd. When their rhythm is disrupted by a loud noise like a car passing it can take hours for them to get in sync again. In the mean time a few have been picked off. TT
Kendra Miller 4 years ago
P.s. I will look up my sources if anyone wants.
Load More Replies... jpaul 4 years ago
here's my contribution. the french word for fox was goupil until the 19th century. when the book 'le roman de renart' (the novel of renart) came out the book which had a fox hero called renart in it became so popular that the french decided to adopt the word renart instead of goupil. renart being a super sly hero in the book. with time it turned to renard with a D, actual french word for fox
Burs 4 years ago
If you do not like it then don’t click on the articles. What is the point of coming here just to whine?
Load More Replies... Joyce Blodgett 2 years ago
In other words, more useless trivia that adds nothing at all to the knowledge needed to live a relatively good life.
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