› added 10 years ago

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TIL That modern tortoises’ ancestors moved out of the sea (fish to land reptiles), then back to the sea (early turtles), then back to the land again as tortoises.

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g9BX TIL there is a radio frequency emanating from Russia that has been broadcasting a “buzzer” like sound since 1982. No one knows where exactly it is coming from or what it means. Also periodically a voice reads orders, names, and numbers.
v1WXK Flying a helicopter on Mars is so damn hard but NASA made it possible. For the first flight, the helicopter took off, climbed to about 10 feet (3 meters) above the ground, hovered in the air briefly, completed a turn, and then landed. It was a major milestone: the very first powered flight in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars, and, in fact, the first such flight in any world beyond Earth. Being able to fly a helicopter or drone on Mars is very important as they can cover 24 kilometers in an hour. By the way, Curiosity took nine years to travel less than 25 kilometers.
Mexb0 TIL of the Frog Boys, a group of South Korean children who went missing while frog hunting. 11 years later their bodies had been discovered, with police concluding that they died from hypothermia. However, a later autopsy revealed them to have been murdered, one with a shotgun blast to the head.
e07Yk TIL that the famous mime Marcel Marceau was part of the French Resistance to the Nazi occupation during World War II. He saved hundreds of Jewish children in hiding by teaching them to communicate in mime, so they could converse silently. Marceau eventually got them to safety to Switzerland.
E8GP TIL Last year, Area 51 was officially acknowledged by the CIA