› added 6 years ago

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TIL animals hover right around 1 billion heartbeats over the course of a lifetime except for humans and chickens who are just over 2 billion heartbeats.

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k87E TIL in WWII,Germans tank drivers in Africa would drive tanks over camel poop for luck. Allies responded by planting land mines disguised as camel dung. Germans got wind of this and began riding over dung that was already overrun with tank tracks. In turn, Allies made mines looking like overrun dung
ADYd4 TIL of Arnold Schuster, a private citizen who appeared on television to discuss how he assisted the police in catching a bank robber, who was then gunned down by an unrelated mobster who saw him on TV and hated "squealers" (informants).
BgWAe TIL that eye tracking can not only be used in head-mounted devices, such as smart glasses and virtual reality headsets, but also through built-in cameras in laptops, tablets, and smartphones without requiring any additional hardware.
VMV04 TIL that in the 70s the US and Soviet baby feared the other had developed a new antisubmarine weapon that damaged wires rubber attached to probes due to deep circle holes left in the rubber, it turns out that these were in fact the bite marks of the relatively unknown cookie cutter sharks
wLLKJ TIL the term 'soap operas' originated from daily 15 minute programs on the radio and were so-called because they were sponsored by soap companies, such as Colgate-Palmolive and Procter & Gamble. Soap operas were specifically engineered to appeal to women with the intention of increasing sale of soap