Post * omRL — Curious Curator

› added 11 years ago

235

TIL that Teflon (PTFE) is the only substance that a gecko cannot climb.

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Ypw57 TIL baby houses were a precursor to the modern dollhouse. They were popular in the 18th century and were an exact replica of the owner's house. They were intended to be a miniature display of the owner's wealth and were not played with.

Lkmnp TIL: Hans Asperger (after whom a type of autism is named) helped the nazis to euthanize disabled children

Z8MLv TIL that when Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, some people hid in Herculaneum's boathouses for shelter. When pyroclastic flows reached them, they were hit with a heatwave so intense that it instantly boiled and vaporized their brains, making their skulls explode

7yWL TIL of Mary Fields, aka “Stagecoach Mary,” a 6 ft, 200 lb former slave who, at age 60, was hired by the U.S. Postal Service as she was the fastest applicant to hitch a team of horses. She never missed a day of work, and when the snow was too deep for her horses, she carried the mail on her back.

JYAdV TIL the first photograph of DNA was taken as part of research by a woman, Rosalind Franklin. Unknown to her, and without her permission, it was shown to James Watson, who then with Francis Crick used what they learned from it to develop the double helix model for DNA, winning them the Nobel Prize.