› added 6 years ago

746

TIL that it's impossible to die of skin suffocation. The filmmakers of the James Bond films believed it was a real risk. For Goldfinger, which features a scene of someone dying of skin suffocation due to being painted gold, they had a physician present and cleaned the person as quickly as possible.

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GAV9E TIL Gold is so malleable that it can be flattened to .0001 inches thick or three microns. For reference the thickness of a sheet of paper is, on average, about .004 inches.
rNNXW TIL Contrary to popular belief, the City of New York was not named directly after York in England, but for the Duke of York, who was later crowned as King James II. When England seized the area from the Dutch, he was appointed as its proprietor by his older brother, King Charles II.
GEmQ TIL pornography is legal in the US even though prostitution is not, because it is illegal to pay one explicitly for sex, but the participants in a film/photo are paid to act and are protected under the first amendment to take part in sexual acts as part of the act.
a5XA TIL that a guy named Seth Putnam wrote a song about how being in a coma was stupid, and soon after went into a coma himself. After he awoke, when asked how it felt to be in a coma he said, “It was just as f*cking stupid as I wrote about in my song”.
ZpWlv TIL that a single gallstone from a cow is worth more than all of its meat. Gallstones are prized items in traditional Chinese medicine and they can go for between $1,700 to $4,000 an ounce.