› added 9 years ago

190

TIL there was an engine used in certain tanks and airplanes that was started using a shotgun shell.

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laO5 TIL Thomas Midgley who invented Ethyl, the lead-based additive to gasoline, also invented chlorofluorocarbons, which just about destroyed the ozone layer. He got polio, invented a wire-and-pulley system to get himself out of bed, and then ended up being strangled by it.
xVx7o TIL: There is a tribe in Africa that communicates with birds to find honeybee hives and then gives the birds some of the honey in return.
8yD4 TIL if you are a worker in Norway and you become unemployed, you will receive 87.6% of your previous salaries for 500 days
Eglw TIL Suspended animation is a surgical technique in which the patient’s body temperature is lowered to about 55F (18C) causing breathing and blood flow to halt. At this point the surgeon has ~45min to operate before any brain damage occurs.
ZWdG TIL Cold War spy satellites from the 1960s took pictures of 10,000 ancient cities and ruins in the Middle East which nobody knew existed until they were re-examined in 2014. The images were made before modern cities overran many archaeological sites.