› added 1 month ago

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TIL world-renowned herpetologist Karl Schmidt was fatally bitten by a boomslang (an arboreal African elapid). To get some data out of the situation, he described every symptom in detail almost until the point of death.

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E1o1P TIL A Royal Navy Sea Harrier once did an emergency landing on a Spanish Cargo ship and the crew claimed the fighter jet as legitimate salvage
AN0gB TIL that in 2014 researchers at MIT conducted a study that found participants were capable of extracting a picture's conceptual meaning after viewing it for as short as 13 ms, meaning the maximum framerate the human eye can see is about 77 frames per second.
kmGE TIL that contrary to popular belief, almost all surgery during the American Civil War was performed under general anesthesia and “pain bullets” are a myth. They were actually chewed by pigs.
xVbVw TIL adding a small amount of seaweed to a cow's diet, can decrease the amount of methane they produce by nearly 60%
VBJbk TIL a "bit" is equal to 12.5¢, and since the US has no coin worth a bit, "two-bit" (equal to one quarter) became a way of describing something cheap or unworthy, as in "two-bit hustler" or "two-bit operation."