› added 1 year ago

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TIL that there is an impact crater over 25 miles in diameter buried beneath Chesapeake Bay which was revealed in 1993 from oil drilling data, and that prior to impact many, many moons ago, Richmond, VA was covered in thick tropical rainforest

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jNKyE TIL because regular air is toxic at high pressures, deep sea divers live on a mix of helium and oxygen, meaning they live and speak with a squeaky helium voice for around a month while working.
J1LGV TIL about guayule (pronounced why-OO-lee). An alternative to rubber trees, it has a rubber content of 3% - 7%. It can be grown in hot, desert climates requiring a fraction of the water/fertilizer that rubber trees do. It's also weed, insect and disease resistant. It was used by the US in WW2.
N7aQM TIL Quantum Immortality is a thought experiment according to which self conscious beings cannot experience death. According to the experiment, the self conscious being’s mind would just switch to another reality in which its death did not occur.
xRxo TIL Strabo wrote the earliest variant of the Cinderella myth circa 24 AD, set in Egypt. Rhodopis, a Greek, was bathing when an eagle snatched one of her shoes, carried it to the sunset, and dropped it into the lap of the Pharaoh. He searched for the owner of the shoe, found Rhodopis and married her
GYeg4 TIL two months before President Franklin Pierce’s inauguration, his last surviving child was killed in a train accident. He refused to be sworn in on a bible, believing God was punishing him for his past sins.