› added 9 years ago

469

TIL of therapeutic hypothermia, the practice of intentionally inducing hypothermia in resuscitated patients for an extended period of time. It has been shown to reduce the chances of brain damage in cardiac arrest sufferers, and is one of the greatest advancements in the science of resuscitation.

GAMpG TIL: Flyting was a medieval contest of insults between two parties often conducted in verse. Insults would involve calling them cowardly or insulting their sexual prowess. Some Kings encourage "court flyting" between poets for entertainment. In some cultures, warriors would flyt before battle.
pYaRZ TIL in 1962. An epidemic of laughter broke out in Tanganyika. The outbreak began in a girls' school and then spread to other communities, where uncontrollable laughter affected an estimated 1,000 people. It lasted several months and 14 schools in the district were closed for quarantine.
0dZ1A TIL that emergency and civil defense sirens are called such because an early model could make sound underwater, like the seaborn sirens of Greek mythology
VMZe8 TIL that 20th centuries physicist and Nobel laureate JJ Thomson had 9 students who later won the Nobel prize in physics or chemistry. Robert Oppenheimer was also one of his students.
5YOmP TIL about a UN weapons inspector (David Kelly) who after declaring that Saddam Hussein had no WMDs (contradicting Britain's motive for involvement in the war) was found dead of an apparent suicide just 2 days later. His postmortem examination was then made classified for 70 years.