› added 12 years ago

269

TIL that an estimated 85 people die for every life saved by speed bumps, because while they slow down cars and save pedestrians they also slow down emergency vehicles that might otherwise save people.

Read more takomapark.patch.com

via reddit.com

9jyB TIL of Belphegor’s Prime. It’s a prime number that is also a palindrome. It’s named after the Prince of Hell for ingenious inventions because it contains two sets of 13 zeroes with 666 in the center. The palindromic prime number is 1000000000000066600000000000001.
BgQRk TIL that veins only appear blue because if the way wavelengths of light hit the skin
jN0ZN TIL that inflation was so low in the United States in the 2010s that economists were actually becoming concerned that it might signal economic stagnation and a lack of economic control. Inflation was lower between 2010 and 2019 than any decade since the 1930s.
OoLxY TIL About Britain's "Anthrax Island," an island used for testing a single anthrax germ bomb by the UK in WW2. It was determined an anthrax bomb could render cities uninhabitable for generations. Quarantined for decades, the island was declared inhabitable again after a cleanup effort in 1986.
PYEOJ TIL the USA performed numerous unethical human experimentation on its citizens: Exposure to chemical/biological weapons; infecting people with deadly/debilitating diseases; human radiation; injecting people toxic/radioactive chemicals; surgical, interrogation, torture and mind-control experiments.