› added 8 years ago

285

TIL street vendors in East Asia have a very different way of making popcorn than in the West. They put kernels in a rotating steel pressure chamber over an open flame called a "popcorn hammer." Upon opening, all of the kernels pop at the same time with a huge "BOOM" that also serves as advertising.

b9vxp TIL Almost all the blood is drained from meat during slaughter, the red look steaks get (including the juice at the bottom of the package) comes from a protein called myoglobin.
QVOX TIL In Qauker Instant Oatmeal with fruit pieces, the strawberries and peaches are actually dehydrated apples, and the blueberries are dehydrated figs.
78L1O TIL about the device ADE 651, which was described by its maker, ATSC, as being powered through the user's static electricity to detect explosives and drugs thanks to "programmed substance detection cards". It was bought in Iraq, Pakistan and the USA before the fraud was discovered
lobM1 TIL of "Barcode Battler", a handheld game released in 1991. The “barcode gaming system” came with a variety of cards containing barcodes; each representing a player, enemy or powerup. Players could also experiment to find barcode monsters from everyday products like food and cleaning supplies.
R5d4l TIL about the Potoooooooo horse, a famous 18th-century Thoroughbred racehorse who, as the story goes, got his name from the stable boy who misheard the name "Potatoes" and heard it literally as "pot-eight-o's" and wrote it out as such. The owner found it so funny that he kept the name.