› added 11 years ago

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TIL that chainsaw resistant clothing exists. When the chainsaw touches the fabric, it cuts thru the outer shell. Inside are long Kevlar fibers that are designed to be pulled into the saw and jam it, preventing further injury.

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lorWa TIL about the Fast Inverse Square Root, an ingenious set of code that quickly calculated accurate square roots in Quake 3 using floating points and Newton's method. However, it is not exactly known who on the dev team implemented the code.
yVPxa TIL the oldest wooden church in the world is Greensted Church. Located in Essex England, it is also Englands oldest wooden building. The structure has stood for 1200 years, although of course work has been carried out multiple times over the centuries leaving little of its original construction.
WAX TIL that a month before Mubarak’s fall 82% of Egyptians supported stoning to death as punishment for adultery, 77% supported hand amputation as punishment for theft, and 84% supported the death penalty for anyone who leaves Islam
WkNXo TIL there is a massive subterranean biosphere estimated to contain life approaching double the volume of all oceans. About 70% of Earth's bacteria and archaea live here. These microbes are often very different from surface cousins, with life cycles on near-geologic timescales.
8aAjV TIL conservationists in South Africa have been injecting rhino horns with red dyes and toxins to prevent poaching. The mixture renders the horn completely useless to those trying to sell it commercially and is also toxic for human consumption.