› added 1 year ago

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TIL about the "Gimli Glider", a Boeing 767 jet that ran out of fuel and glided for 17 minutes without engine power, crash-landing on a crowded racetrack with no deaths or major injuries. Other pilots who used a flight simulator to reenact the incident all failed to land safely.

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R5lZ9 TIL The root cause of transient motion-related illnesses (e.g., seasickness, carsickness), especially why some people seem to be inherently immune, is not fully understood.
8aG4P TIL that lyme disease was not as common in the past as it is now, and its prevalence is actually due to an explosion in the white-footed mouse population at the turn of the 20th century. This in turn coincides with the extinction of the mouse's primary ecological competitor: the passenger pigeon.
4kK7a TIL: Sweden conducted the Vipeholm experiment on the intellectual disabled in the 1950s, where they fed them a large amount of sweets to see how it affects the formation of cavities. It was sponsored by the sugar industry and dentists. It sound experiment, but deemed unethical years after.
epda5 TIL a Challenger space shuttle engineer, Allan McDonald, raised safety concerns against the wishes of his employer & NASA. He was ignored; a fatal accident resulted. When McDonald spoke out, he was demoted by his company. Congress stepped in to help him. He later taught ethical decision making.
N7NZJ TIL the line "I think it's across the bay, in Alameda" in Star Trek IV was ad-libbed by an extra. Studio had to get her to join the Actor Guild so they could keep the spontaneous line in the movie.