› added 13 years ago

615

TIL that MIT developed a computer software that can identify and distinguish a real smile from a smile of frustration.

Read more web.mit.edu

via reddit.com

ojBE TIL in WWII, a dog named Gander fended off two Japanese ambushes. When they came back again, with a grenade this time, Gander picked it up and charged back at them, killing more Japanese, saving his wounded team, going out in a blaze of glory and earning a posthumous medal.
pmjO TIL that in 2009, within one month of each other, 16-year-olds in Canada and Taiwan discovered plastic-eating microorganisms that could potentially solve our plastic and styrofoam waste problems.
OGGke TIL there are two ATM machines in all of Antarctica (at the McMurdo Station), but only one of them works. The 'broken' one is only there to "cannibalize, if you will, for parts or spare things that they need to make the other one live and operational."
5Vy7r TIL in 2010 Sam Ballard was drinking with several friends when he was dared to eat a slug that had begun to crawl across his friend's concrete patio. After he ate it, he'd find out the infected slug had given him rat lungworm disease, which put him into a year-long coma & ultimately took his life.
kJGR1 TIL researchers are able to study atmospheric composition, stretching back thousands of years, by examining air bubbles trapped in ice