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TIL the United States and the Soviet Union were technically separated by a mere 3.7 km, and a woman swam between them in 1987, earning praise from the leaders of both countries

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6E96X You’re in luck. For their senior project, two Cornell University computer-engineering whizzes recently built a machine that does just that. After learning in class how breathalyzers work, Robert Clain and Miguel Salas assembled a fart detector from a sensitive hydrogen sulfide monitor, a thermometer and a microphone and wrote the software that would rate the emission. A “slight perturbance in the air” near the detector sets it to work measuring the three pillars of fart quality: stench, temperature and sound. Temperature, Clain explains, is critical.
X0n1E TIL that chickens pass a version of the mirror test, where roosters warn others if they see a predator, but don't warm their own reflection in the mirror.
EgkbW TIL that the two stars of Kickboxer (1989), Jean Claude Van Damme (Sloane) and Michael Qissi (Tong Po) were both uncredited extras for the outdoor dance scenes for the movie Breakin’ (1984).
GdNE TIL the Outer Space Treaty, signed by all major space faring nations, prohibits claiming territory in space or on celestial bodies. Space is considered “the shared heritage of mankind”
Egy1w TIL that cotton candy was invented by a dentist