› added 7 years ago

230

TIL that the wet wipe industry and sewerage companies are fighting over what it means to be “flushable” with the sewerage companies claiming that they had to remove lumps as big as 10 tons from their sewer systems.

Read more theatlantic.com

via ift.tt

d8YEZ TIL Mahasweta Devi wrote over 100 novels and over 20 collections of short stories primarily written in Bengali. She had claimed that her stories aren't her creation, they are the stories of the people of her country, with a focus on marginalized citizens and women
v1XPR TIL after the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003 the debris field stretched from Texas through Louisiana, and the search team was so thorough they found nearly 84,000 pieces of the shuttle, as well as a number of murder victims and a few meth labs.
1aO1W TIL in 2014, scientist Michael J. Smith published a study on where it’s most and least painful to get stung by a bee. Most painful: nostril, lip, and penis shaft. Least painful: skull, middle toe tip, and arm. He won an IgNobel Prize.
m1V9x TIL that the length of a minute has varied throughout history. In ancient Babylon, a minute was equal to just 1/70th of an hour, and in ancient Egypt it was 1/100th of an hour. The length of a minute was finally standardized to 60 seconds in 1800s. (They also modeled it after how long my ex lasted)
0wK6v TIL that after the Six Day War, Egypt closed down the Suez Canal in 1967 with 15 ships still on it. They remained stuck there for eight years, with the boat crew members forming the Great Bitter Lake Association. The GBLA had social clubs, its own version of an Olympics, and even stamps.