› added 12 years ago

96

TIL A banana is a unit of radioactive exposure and that a truckload of bananas is able to set off a false alarm at U.S. ports sensing for smuggled radioactive material

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

KO9JE Today I Learned: Gargoyles are fancy rain gutters. In architecture, a gargoyle is a carved or formed grotesque with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building, thereby preventing rainwater from running down masonry walls and eroding the mortar between.
XpNE TIL Mary Anderson, inventor of the modern windscreen wiper was told “we do not consider it to be of such commercial value as would warrant our undertaking its sale”, when she tried to sell her patent. Many company’s went on to implement her device after her patent was expired.
69A4X TIL that in the province of Alberta, if you find a fossil that does not require excavation on Crown Land (public areas) you are the custodian of that fossil. You may keep the fossil in your possession but the fossil is owned by the province and therefore cannot be sold or removed from the province.
lMXa TIL there are approximately three million shipwrecks on the ocean floor, worth billions in value and treasure.
DQoPv TIL Belgian authorities destroyed over 2,300 cans of an American beer branded as ‘The Champagne of Beers’ because the beer’s slogan was considered a misuse of the term “Champagne”, which is legally protected and reserved exclusively for the sparkling wine produced in the Champagne region of France.