› added 2 months ago

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TIL Research has recently found neurons specifically dedicated to anticipating the sequence of melodic notes, separate from speech processing, showing music activates distinct neural mechanisms for predicting melody sequences.

GWXG TIL every year in the mekong river in Thailand, hundreds of fireballs erupt from the surface of the water, and nobody knows what causes them. locals believe a mythical serpent called Naga spits fire from the water. The event is known as Naga fireballs.
Y7pWA TIL about Lisan Al-Din Ibn Al-Khatib, an Andalusian polymath who proposed the idea of transmissible diseases, and more precisely that the Bubonic Plague was transmitted from person to person, centuries before Louis Pasteur and John Snow
e0RlL TIL in Monty Python and the Holy Grail the actors mimed riding horses because the small production budget didn't allow for real horses to be used.
awgJ0 TIL between 1970 and 1973, four Israeli fighter pilots translated The Hobbit from English to Hebrew to pass the time in an Egyptian prison, where they were held as POWs. The pilots' translation was published commercially in 1977, and up until 2012 was considered the best Hebrew version of the book.
bRQN TIL in 2005 Tony Nicklinson suffered a stroke which left him completely paralysed (locked-in syndrome). He fought a legal battle for a right to assisted suicide, but lost. On learning the outcome of his appeal, he refused to eat, contracted pneumonia, deteriorated rapidly and died a week later.