› added 11 years ago

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TIL NASA mapped the Earth at night and discovered that half of an uninhabited part of Australia is on fire - producing even more light than the capital cities.

Read more earthobservatory.nasa.gov

via reddit.com

QNDo9 TIL about Albert Cossery a french philosopher who loved to be lazy that he said sorry for getting a prize for his writing because he had to wake up at 10 in the morning.
5APP TIL in Star Wars Episode 4 during the Chewbacca prisoner transfer scene, Mark Hamill improvised the cell block number 1138 as a reference to George Lucas’s film THX 1138. Lucas was not impressed.
9YPyQ TIL the defense mechanism of the American Opossum, "Playing Dead", is an involuntary action. The opossum will seize up, evacuate bowels, and excrete "dead thing" smell from a gland
X0JaE TIL that in his final years as US president, Woodrow Wilson was too sick to govern. His wife Edith kept his sickness secret, taking over so many duties she was essentially president. She hid Wilson's paralysis by covering his left side with a blanket.
4XjWa TIL mustard gas, which was used heavily during World War I, is not just a skin irritant but damages DNA by corrupting molecules in the strand. If the victim survives, the DNA damage can lead to the development of cancer.