› added 11 years ago

68

TIL twice a year the sun perfectly lines up with the streets of New York, creating a phenomenon known as Manhattanhenge.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

d8E4d TIL that the reason pineapple often stings your mouth is because it contains flesh-eating enzymes that digest your mouth.
Ooo7 TIL that Titan's combination of high atmospheric density and low gravity would allow a human to 'fly' by flapping fake 'wings' attached to their arms.
6rXY TIL Japanese uses a large number of wasei-eigo, or English-based invented words and phrases that don’t exist in English, such as “cherry boy” for a male virgin, “virgin road” for the wedding aisle, “skin-ship” for physical intimacy, and “year of the coach” for Coach of the Year.
wdO7 TIL fecal transplant is an increasingly popular treatment of severe bacterial infections. Disease-free feces from a donor is infused and the bacteria defeats the infection. It is being explored as a treatment for a variety of conditions, including obesity, M.S., diabetes, and Parkinson’s disease.
E0Vd TIL Scientists isolated bacterium from a man’s intestines & used it to fatten mice specially bred to resist obesity. The microbe made up 35% of microorganisms in his digestive tract & a diet formulated to kill off those bacteria reduced the levels to below detection. He lost 113 pounds in 23 weeks.