› added 6 years ago

313

TIL Australia has the highest cigarette tax rates in the world, with a 12.5% yearly excise being applied since 2010. This will continue until 2020, when the average packet of cigarettes is projected cost about AU$40 (USD$30). This compares to about $6-8 in the US and the EU.

Read more tobaccocontrol.bmj.com

via reddit.com

woKW1 TIL about the "catapult-able cockpit", created by Romanian inventor Anastase Dragomir and successfully tested in 1929 at the Paris-Orly Airport, which featured a parachuted chair that was ejected from an aircraft. It was the first modern layout for an ejection seat, later perfected during WWII.
MB80 TIL that, by law, no US officer is ever allowed to outrank George Washington, and he was posthumously promoted to “six star general” to make sure.
R7VRl TIL that modern humans and neanderthals interbred, and as a result, all non-Africans carry between one and four percent Neanderthal DNA.
wL6mE TIL that Winston Churchill was the third great grandson of an American Major in the Revolutionary War.
vP41x TIL Nanotechnology, a convergence of science and engineering at the nanoscale, is reshaping the landscape of medicine. This theme unveils the use of tiny particles for drug delivery, diagnostics, and even targeted therapies at the molecular level