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TIL in a 2009 TED talk about Malaria, Bill Gates brought a jar of mosquitos onto the stage and released them into the crowd to frighten the audience into considering the dangers of Malaria closer to home.

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via ift.tt

R59Y6 TIL that O’Neill cylinders are space habitats proposed by physicist Gerard K. O’Neill. They consist of two rotating cylinders that generate artificial gravity and contain cities, farmland, and landscapes, with sunlight directed by mirrors, creating a livable environment for long-term habitation.
BgLyr TIL a high school student wrote a text-based moon landing simulation in 1969 using a PDP-8 minicomputer. It was "a question and answer game" - at each stage of the landing you'd find out your current velocity and then you had to enter how much fuel to use. If you burned fuel too early, you'd crash.
nWjdB TIL that during the Gulf War the coalition forces suffered nearly as many non-combat losses (145) as losses directly related to combat (148 KIA). This number is mainly due to a single C-130H that crashed while transporting 95 Senegalese soldiers.
d1Pj TIL Lt. General Sir Carton de Wiart was shot in the face, head, stomach, ear; survived 2 plane crashes; tunneled out a POW camp; tore off his fingers when a doctor refused to amputate; reportedly removed his eye b/c it kept him from aiming his gun; and threw his glass eye out of a taxi.
Abpa TIL that form 1969 to 1977, Ford Motor Company produced the Pinto with full knowledge of a design flaw that frequently caused the fuel tank to catch fire during rear collisions, which would have cost $11 per vehicle to fix. The tag line in radio ads was, “Pinto leaves you with that warm feeling.”