› added 12 years ago

163

TIL Dying is illegal in Longyearbyen, Norway because the town’s small graveyard stopped accepting bodies after discovering the permafrost prevented the bodies from decomposing.

Read more news.bbc.co.uk

via reddit.com

Ky6Q TIL farmers in Kenya are using elephants’ natural fears of bees and building “beehive fences” that keep wild elephants from trampling the crops. It keeps the farms safe, and prevents farmers having to kill elephants to defend their livelihood!
yO4e TIL 1997 Britain required civilians to surrender almost all privately owned handguns to the police. More than 162,000 handguns and 1.5 million pounds of ammunition were confiscated, however the British homicide rate continued to increase, rising 50% by 2002
VBmXQ TIL that Avengers Endgame’s story was referenced off of Star Trek: TNG’s finale ‘All Good Things…’ and the sign off is lifted directly from the sixth Star Trek film ‘The Undiscovered Country’
7JYr TIL during an interview about the casting of Jean-Luc Picard, Gene Roddenberry was asked by a reporter, “Surely they would have cured baldness by the 24th century?” Roddenberry answered, “In the 24th century, they wouldn’t care.”
9YQAm TIL the first Soviet probe sent to Mars' moon Phobos failed due to user error. While the probe was still on its way to Mars, an impatient technician who didn't want to wait for his code to be proofread unintentionally sent a command to the probe to shut down and there was no way to turn it back on.