› added 6 years ago

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TIL that 80% of toilets in Hong Kong are flushed with seawater in order to conserve the city's scarce freshwater resources

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via reddit.com

9Y6mQ TIL that researchers used Renaissance paintings to get a sense of breast cancer’s historical prevalence.
wWOW TIL that escape velocity of Deimos, one of Mars’s moons, is 20km/h - meaning you could easily throw something, or even ride a bike off a ramp, out of its gravity
Wkym8 TIL that architect Antoni Gaudí wasn't able to finish the Sagrada Família because he died after being struck by a tram. He was left laying for hours and then only given rudimentary care because he was assumed to be a beggar due to his shabby clothes and lack of identity documents.
89oX TIL starlings exist in North America because one guy wanted to introduce all the birds mentioned in the plays of William Shakespeare.
b9byp TIL: About aurichalcum (AKA orichalcum), a "lost" precious metal written of in ancient times and now gone to legend. It was considered second in value to gold. The word is used among present-day coin collectors to describe a certain alloy of brass used in Roman-era sestertius and dupondius coins.