› added 13 years ago

172

TIL that speakers of the tonal language Mandarin are 10x more likely to develop perfect pitch than native English speakers (bottom graph page 5).

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WkWjY TIL Bob the Railway dog would hitch rides on the South Australian Railways system, travelling thousands of miles sitting in front of the coal space. He had no master but was loved by engineers and trainmen. He was given a collar that read- Stop me not, but let me jog, For I am Bob, the drivers dog.
1akdD TIL one part of Istanbul lies in Europe and the other part lies in Asia. European part is separated from it's asian part by the Bhosphorus strait
oBP6L TIL that during filming of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Gene Wilder liked to keep the kids on their toes. None of the kids had seen the chocolate room prior to filming the scene or his rant in the famous boat scene. Most looks of shock were genuine and they thought Gene had lost it.
OoG8e TIL Keiko the Orca, of Free Willy fame, died after only about a year and a half after being fully released due to a failure to adapt to life in the wild. The project to free him cost roughly US$20 million.
yVnne TIL of Martin Pistorius, who was unable to move or communicate for several years, but was able to recover partially due to his hatred of Barney, reruns of which were shown in his room