› added 8 years ago

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TIL a 10 year old British girl saved nearly a hundred foreign tourists at Maikhao Beach in Thailand by warning beachgoers minutes before the arrival of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake tsunami. She learned about tsunamis in school just two weeks prior to the event.

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YpjeP TIL farmers in Africa use beehives to protect their crops from the largest and arguably most destructive crop pest in Africa: the elephant. Bees can’t sting through their thick hides but they can sting sensitive areas like the eyes, mouth, and inner trunk - they hear the hive buzzing and flee.
p8JeQ TIL modern Polaroid film is less technologically advanced than traditional Polaroid film, and that Polaroid photos are now worse than they used to be
oD6W TIL that blasphemy was still a crime in the United Kingdom until 2008.
GYbE5 TIL of Ken Alibek, last USSR 1st Deputy Director of Biopreparat. Before defecting to the US in 1992 he destroyed vast bioweapon (BW) stockpiles and production facilities but could not stop all future BW work in Russia. His 1999 book Biohazard details the USSR’s secret, treaty-violating BW program.
jDjM TIL you could survive indefinitely on nothing but potatoes, butter and water.