› added 10 years ago

87

TIL Turkey Vultures were used by natural gas companies to pinpoint pipeline leaks. Natural gas is odorless, so gas companies add the chemical ethyl mercaptan so that people can smell gas leaks. Ethyl mercaptan is emitted by putrefying animal carcasses. So leaks in gas pipelines attract vultures.

Read more bedfordaudubon.org

via reddit.com

NXngb TIL NASA's Gemini 6a astronauts & craft were saved by a fluke. At ignition an electrical plug came off shutting down the engines. Later a dust cover was found left on a gas generator in error. Had the plug not fallen off the furl flow would have been choked, triggering a perilous pad ejection.
Rmea TIL that during the first battle of the American Civil War, hundreds of civilians from Washington DC brought picnic baskets and came to watch the battle, sure the Union would easily win. The Union lost, and the civilians were caught in the retreat of the Northern army.
XO5k TIL there was a service dog named Endal, who, in 2001, rescued his unconscious owner by putting him in the recovery position, covering him with a blanket, retrieving his mobile phone, and running to a nearby hotel to obtain help after his wheelchair was clipped by a vehicle.
Br4Mx TIL: The hyphenating of an American’s ethnicity or origin was originally a nationalistic and disparaging epithet.
P1JRn TIL President Diouf began an anti-AIDS program in Senegal, before the virus was able to take off. He used media and schools to promote safe-sex messages and required prostitutes to be registered. While AIDS was decimating much of Africa, the infection rate for Senegal stayed below 2 percent