› added 5 years ago

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TIL that thousands of Americans may have died because they were afraid to fly. Since 9/11 led travelers to choose driving over flying, Cornell researchers believe that the attacks caused an increase of 242 deaths per month due to flying being safer than driving.

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70KX TIL Frank Sinatra’s death coincided with the west coast airing of the series finale of Seinfeld. With everybody indoors watching the episode, the ambulance carrying Sinatra was able to get to the hospital in 10 minutes due to the light traffic.
x6kX1 TIL in the 1800s, Mary Toft convinced doctors she gave birth to 17 rabbits by inserting their body parts into her uterus. The bizarre hoax was uncovered, and Toft charged with fraud. Her story, known as "Rabbit Woman of Godalming," has been the subject of literature and art.
VMODZ TIL there are now TPU microprocessors. CPUs are ones and zeroes, GPUs are threes for doing triangles to make polygons and TPUs are fours for processing matrices for AI deep learning ten times faster.
4XWeN TIL about Amy Rorbach, a reporter for ABC News, who underwent a mammogram live on air in 2013 to promote the procedure for Breast Cancer Awareness month. It was discovered that she did have cancer, and the procedure likely saved her life.
mxWVx TIL Washington is the first state to allow the composting of human remains. The law allows organic reduction using wood chips & straw, or alkaline hydrolysis aka liquid cremation. Tests of donated bodies resulted in rich, odorless soil passing all federal & state safety guidelines.