› added 5 years ago

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TIL 70% Ethanol (alcohol) is a more effective disinfectant because pure alcohol on a single celled organism triggers coagulation (clot) preventing it from penetrating deeper into the cell wall rendering it dormant but still alive. The water in 70% ethanol allows it to penetrate before it can clot.

N70Ee TIL of Inmate Kevin Pullum, who escaped Twin Towers Correctional Facility by walking out of an employee exit 2 hours after being convicted of attempted murder. He used a newspaper photograph of actor Eddie Murphy to alter an identification badge.
Y7KZB TIL the Japanese Navy still uses the "rising sun" flag, a flag most commonly associated with Imperialist Japan, and the atrocities commited by their military during WWII.
9wKQM TIL about the Lost Apple Project, a nonprofit organization that searches abandoned farms in the Pacific Northwest to locate old apple varieties that have been thought to be lost or extinct. There were approximately 17k varieties of apples in the US, but only about 4.5k are known to exist today
jPrn TIL Theodore Roosevelt watched his mother die of typhoid fever and then immediately had to go upstairs and see his wife die of complications from childbirth.
nedvd TIL about Lauri Törni, a veteran of three armies. Törni fought as a second lieutenant of the Finnish Army in the Winter War, as a captain of the Waffen-SS in the Eastern Front and as a captain of the U.S Special Forces in Vietnam. Mauno Koivisto, former president of Finland, was under his command.