› added 11 years ago

131

TIL SpongeBob is 27 years old, he was born on July 14, 1986

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via reddit.com

8aovX TIL that the big four artificial sweeteners - Saccharine, Cyclamate, Aspartame and Sucralose - were all discovered after scientists accidentally tasted the chemicals.
xVVGk Of all the bodies in our solar system, the sun is probably the one we want to give the widest berth. It gushes radiation, and even though its surface is the coolest part of the star, it burns at about 9,940°F, hot enough to incinerate just about any material. As such, there are no plans to send a manned mission in its direction anytime soon (Mars is much more interesting, anyway), but it can't hurt to figure out at what distance a person would want to turn back. You can get surprisingly close. The sun is about 93 million miles away from Earth, and if we think of that distance as a football field, a person starting at one end zone could get about 95 yards before burning up.
4XjWa TIL mustard gas, which was used heavily during World War I, is not just a skin irritant but damages DNA by corrupting molecules in the strand. If the victim survives, the DNA damage can lead to the development of cancer.
WagB TIL of Chen Si: A Chinese man who since 2003 has dedicated every weekend to patrolling the Nanjing Bridge to help those about to commit suicide. He is credited with stopping over 300 suicides.
oByOr TIL that legendary crime fighter Eliot Ness was promised by Al Capone that $2,000 would be on his desk every Monday morning if he turned a blind eye to his gang's bootlegging activities ( $33,000 a week in 2018 adjusting for inflation). Ness refused the bribe, was penniless when he died in 1957.