› added 11 months ago

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TIL that snakes have forked tongues that they use to smell by flicking them in the air and bringing chemicals to an organ called the Jacobson's gan, which smells the chemicals for the snake.

rd4x TIL the European Space Agency and EU are currently deploying an alternative to GPS, called “Galileo”. As well as being accurate to 1cm, it will also have a “Search and Rescue Service”, where distress signals can be picked up from anywhere on Earth. The full system will be completed by 2019.
YlXP TIL the Statue of Liberty’s hand sat in a New York park for 6 years before being installed. While the French paid for the statue, the US didn’t want to pay for the pedestal, so to raise money, photographs were sold to tourists and for 50 cents, you could climb a ladder to the top of the torch.
P1Zrw TIL that The Guess Who (best known for the song "American Woman") was originally known as Chad Allan & The Expressions. Their record label credited their first single to "Guess Who?" in a cheap ploy to make consumers think they were a popular British Invasion band hiding their identity.
6JVJ TIL The first ever Windows Computer Virus was created by two Pakistani Brothers to fight against software piracy. The virus destroyed memory, slowed the hard drive and hid a short copyright message in the boot sector.
l7EBK TIL during visit to a state built flat in communist Poland Picasso spontaneously drew a painting on a wall of some random folks living room It was painted over in 1953 by a couple who lived there and couldn’t handle hundreds of strangers wanting to come in and stare at their wall.