› added 7 months ago

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TIL that "the dark side of the moon" means "unknown", not literally dark. "Each location on the Moon experiences two weeks of sunlight while the opposite location experiences night."

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via reddit.com

dxvj TIL A man thought to be in a vegetative state is able to tell scientists that he is not in pain. “We have scanned him several times and his pattern of brain activity shows he is clearly choosing to answer our questions. We believe he knows who and where he is.”
v1OA4 TIL denatured alcohol (sold in hardware stores) isn't chemically different from drinking alcohol. The only difference is it's purposely laced with poison and nausea inducing additives so you can't drink it. This compromises allows it to be sold without alcohol tax and ensures people don't drink it.
yD1X TIL “Recovery from anesthesia is not simply the result of the anesthetic ‘wearing off,’ but also of the brain finding its way back through a maze of possible activity states to those that allow conscious experience,” one researcher said. “Put simply, the brain reboots itself.”
OoNbL TIL That the phrase 'flying saucer' used as a substitute for an UFO is the result of a mistaken newspaper report in 1947 of the first well-known UFO sighting by the business mogul Kenneth Arnold who said the speeding aerial was crescent-shaped but moved "like saucers skipping on water".
5bpn TIL that due to a requirement for official Welsh road signs to be bilingual, Swansea council installed a sign barring heavy lorries. It wasn’t realized until long after that the Welsh actually read, “I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated”.