› added 5 years ago

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TIL of the Smokey Bear Effect, and how the stringent prevention of wildfires by the U.S. Forest Service has led to "megafires" which are much more destructive and even fatal.

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eyEE TIL that nectarines and peaches are the same species, with a gene controlling whether the skin is fuzzy or smooth
7r7rO TIL in Scandinavia the Kiruna to Narvik electrified railway carries iron ore down a steeply graded route. On the way down the trains generate large amounts of electricity by regenerative braking, which is sufficient to power the empty trains back up the track and pump excess energy into the grid.
R7aa8 TIL that the United States Postmaster General is the second-highest paid U.S. government official (267,840 USD), based on publicly available salary information, after the President of the United States.
OGYdg TIL the first Vampire / Dracula movie is 100 years old, released in 1922. It was an unofficial adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula.
Yy7P TIL Japan imports rice from the U.S. as required by the World Trade Organization, but almost none of it ever actually reaches Japanese dinner plates. Instead, the imported rice is donated to North Korea, fed to pigs, or left to rot in vast Japanese warehouses, sitting in storage for years.