› added 11 years ago

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TIL of Andrew Halliburton, a Scottish child prodigy with an IQ of 145, entered IT university at 16 only to drop out six months later and become a burger flipper at McDonald’s

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via reddit.com

BrVLr TIL of the term "paraprosdokian" - a figure of speech in which the latter part of a phrase is surprising in a way that causes the reader or listener to reinterpret the first part. An example would be Mitch Hedberg's famous one-liner "I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long."
MEwA TIL Mick “Crocodile” Dundee was based on an actual person who survived 56 days in crocodile infested outback Australia. He died in a police shootout after he killed a cop while high on amphetamines.
Na6M TIL that after a serial rapist in India was attacked by 200 women, only 5 of those women got arrested. Those 5 women then got released when every woman from their village stood up and took responsibility for the attack.
R740l TIL Quokkas have a survival instinct which triggers when a mother is threatened by a predator. She will throw her baby at the predator, which will hiss at the predator while the mother makes her escape.
gMW18 TIL the chemical Formamide has been proposed as an alternative to water that could support life with alternative biochemistries to that currently found on Earth. It can be formed with hydrogen cyanide and water, has a large dipole moment, and dissolves almost everything that dissolves in water.