› added 6 years ago

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TIL that in 2013, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation paid a $100,000 grant to help fund research into thinner and stronger condoms made of Graphene

Read more bbc.com

via reddit.com

jNZ8a TIL in 2003 a high school football player set a new record for career passing yardage; he later found out that both teams' coaches had conspired in his last game to ensure he'd beat the record, and he requested that the yardage from that game be expunged from his record, relinquishing the record
QJbKp TIL the first "Seven Wonders" lists came guidebooks popular with Hellenic sightseers that date from the 2nd-1st century BC.
gMGaW Today I learned upside-down rainbows exist; they are named circumzenithal arcs and are considered halos. Arcs are caused by the refraction of sunlight through ice crystals, generally in cirrus or cirrosts clouds, rather than from raindrops like regular rainbows.
Lkdxr TIL about the Holodomor (death inflicted by starvation) which refers to the starvation of millions of Ukrainians during 1932-1933 caused by soviet policies. Private farms were destroyed and were replaced by collectivized farms. We remember this event on the fourth Saturday of every November.
5Dj9 TIL that in 2009 two nuclear submarines (French and British) collided into one another in the Atlantic… because they couldn’t detect one another.