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TIL Los Angeles is the first major city in the world to synchronize all its traffic lights. Nearly 4,400 lights across 469 miles receive real-time updates about traffic flow to make second-by-second adjustments. The system limits congestion by up to 16% while also dramatically reducing idling time.

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QJZRE TIL Talk show host Jerry Springer’s parents were some of the Jews to get out of Germany before being sent to camps. His grandmother was one of the first to go to the gas chamber.
4j15 TIL of Whipping Tom, the name given to two serial spankers in London in the 17th & 18th centuries. “On seeing an unaccompanied woman, he would grab her, lift her dress, and slap her buttocks repeatedly before fleeing. He would sometimes accompany his attacks by shouting "Spanko!”“
4kPXR TIL TV shows love hiring twins for newborn roles. Twins double the filming time (they swap them out) and, since they’re often born premature and smaller, they look more like fresh newborns on screen, even if they’re actually a few weeks old.
8amOP TIL that virgin queen ants leave their existing colony to form their own in a process known as nuptial flight. In preparation for the flight, males emerge from their pupa case and are "quickly converted into single-purpose sexual missiles."
L0Dd TIL neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote about a man who after a night involving amphetamines, cocaine and PCP awoke with a extremely heightened sense of smell. Sacks revealed years later that it was in fact himself.