› added 6 years ago

146

TIL Viruses kill about 25-30% of the living material in the oceans every day. When they infect and kill organisms, nutrients such as carbon and phosphorous are released into the ocean. This keeps microbes and phytoplankton thriving. If you take the viruses out of seawater, photosynthesis stops

Read more hakaimagazine.com

via reddit.com

0wbaL TIL that California trains and employs prisoners to fight fires, but then bans them from getting the license they need to become full-time firefighters after they are released.
grP1D TIL the Apple II version of the video game Karateka had an Easter egg whereby entering the floppy disk the wrong way up displayed a full version of the game completely upside-down.
MedZ7 TIL about the plunge for distance, a short-lived olympic swim event where competitors jumped from the edge of the pool and floated motionless as far as possible. It was criticized as "not an athletic event at all" since competitors "merely throw themselves heavily into the water and float along".
PmQw TIL When the BBC tried to trademark the image of the TARDIS, the Metropolitan Police tried to stop them as it is a ‘police’ box. However the court ruled in favour of the BBC because it’s more widely recognised as a time machine.
b9ZkN TIL that following the September 11th attacks, Clear Channel Communications (now iHeartMedia) made a list of songs that weren’t allowed to be played on the stations they owned. This list includes every song made by Rage Against the Machine.