› added 10 years ago

87

TIL that the word “utopia” literally means “not a place.”

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via reddit.com

nWJ7Y TIL about Deep Lake, a lake in Antarctica that has such high salinity, 10 times saltier than the oceans, that it never freezes, even in the winter. Conditions in the lake are so hostile that almost nothing can survive there.
KgmE TIL The difference between poisonous and venomous animals; “if you bite it and you die, it’s poisonous. If it bites you and you die, it’s venomous.”
rjj4 TIL of Ewen Cameron, who in the the 50s ran experiments on humans which involved giving several electric shocks a week, taping blacked out football helmets to their heads and playing repetitive messages in their ears for months at a time. Some patients apparently forgot who they were and how to talk
D5xY TIL If Bart Simpson had aged normally, he’d now be 34, the age given to Marge in the first season. “The Simpsons” has literally been on the air for an entire generation.
xNNo TIL that Washington, D.C. uses a series of acoustic sensors called “ShotSpotter” to detect gunfire. When “ShotSpotter” sensors detect a loud noise, a central computer program analyzes the acoustic signature, pinpoints the suspected location to within a few yards and notifies police.