› added 6 months ago

33

TIL Mars sometimes hums. Scientists aren't sure why.

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VBO5Z TIL that in 1856 the U.S army bought camels, and in 1862 the confederate army captured "Douglas the camel", he served a year before he was shot, or most likely eaten.
4JAb TIL In South Carolina, the maximum sentence for beating your dog is longer than the max sentence for beating your wife.
wrrM TIL of Louis Slotin, a scientist who died while working on the Manhattan Project. He accidentally dropped a hemisphere of beryllium on a plutonium core; witnesses saw glowing blue light and felt a heat wave. He died nine days later. The plutonium core was later nicknamed the “demon core”.
GYlj4 TIL Curious George, the beloved children's book and its authors, escaped the Nazis and the Holocaust by escaping France by bicycle. Margaret and H.A. Rey biked 439 miles from Paris to the Spain border with little else besides their unpublished manuscript about a mischievous monkey.
7Mlb TIL that in 2010, when Google replaced their logo with playable Pacman, users spent an extra 36 seconds on the page. Assuming this time was wasted, it resulted in a $120M loss in man hours.