› added 7 years ago

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TIL: Elephants were enticed by Chinese and Burmese drug smugglers to carry their loads by feeding them opium laced bananas. After a year-long methadone treatment program, the elephants are now drug free.

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b9kZ0 TIL: NASCAR is rooted in Prohibition bootlegging. They souped up stock cars to outrun the police and that led to competitive racing between gangs.
n64Y TIL that a student from the Ukraine died from a piece of bubble gum that exploded in his mouth. He accidentally dipped the gum into a packet of explosive material, instead of citric acid.
rRVJM TIL former Beatles roadie Mal Evans produced Badfingers top 10 hit No Matter What. He was also a reason how they became the first band signed under Apple Records.
R7R9w Let’s say you’re doing 100 mph in a car and suddenly a downed tree, stopped the car, or person appears in the road up ahead and you need to slam on the brakes. How much more dangerous is that situation than when you’re doing 70 mph? Your intuition might tell you that 100 mph is only 30% more than 70 mph. But as this video shows, the important factor in stopping a car (or what happens to the car when it collides with something else) does not speed but energy, which increases at the square of speed. In other words, going from 70 mph to 100 mph more than doubles your energy…and going from 55 to 100 more than triples it.
wobd7 TIL two weeks after being appointed CEO of Olympus, Michael Christopher Woodford blew the whistle on Olympus after he was fired for repeatedly questioning suspicious transactions and involving external auditors, exposing one of the biggest "loss-hiding arrangements in Japanese corporate history".