› added 1 year ago

39

TIL there is a Mount Kennedy in Canada, named after the president JFK a year after his assassination. Canada selected it because it was close to the US-Canada border and it serves as a symbol of the two nations' friendship.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

ADAY7 TIL the world's foremost expert on ants chose to study ants because when he begun his entomology career in 1947, insect pins were hard to come by due to WWII metal shortages. Unlike other insects, ants are stored in vials, not pinned.
WkmXN TIL Turkish counterfeiters were once busted for faking popsicle sticks. They allegedly exchanged the sticks for free ice cream, then sold the ice cream at half-price. They were active for 3 years, but were caught when a local ice cream firm noticed they were receiving more sticks than they produced.
x5Zb TIL the composition of both marijuana and tobacco smoke is nearly identical - “Toxic substances, such as carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, and nitrosamines occur in similar concentrations in tobacco and marijuana smoke; so do the amounts of particulate material known collectively as ‘tars’.”
9Ynp TIL that when two Japanese pole vaulters tied for silver in the 1936 Olympics, and one was awarded the bronze, they had their medals split in half back home, and got them fused as half-silver and half-bronze in a showing of friendship.
Bgred TIL A fluorocarbon called perfluorohexane has both enough oxygen and carbon dioxide with enough space between the molecules that animals submerged in the liquid can still breath normally.