› added 11 years ago

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TIL that in 2009, within one month of each other, 16-year-olds in Canada and Taiwan discovered plastic-eating microorganisms that could potentially solve our plastic and styrofoam waste problems.

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YpAVP TIL The modern conspiracy - The Illuminati, was an art project/protest in the late 60's by a political theorist and a staffer at Playboy to show the public how ridiculous and disempowering it was to think a group of secretive people controlled the world.
XEamR TIL Sriracha sauce was created in Sri Racha, Thailand by a woman named Madam La Orr Suwanprasop. After being blessed by a monk to do so, she began selling her famous sauce. The same monk suggested she name it after her hometown of Sri Racha.
Wk898 TIL Radar was developed as a consequence of the urgent need to counter Nazi bomber attacks. The British Radio Research Station was asked to investigate a radio-based "death ray", but found it was more practical to use radio to detect enemy aircraft
NXQ7Q TIL: Henry Heimlich got to use the Heimlich maneuver in 2016, 40+ years after he invented it when a fellow senior in his living community was choking. He was 96 and while had demonstrated it countless times, he had never used it in a real scenario until then.
4kedJ TIL the writer of 'Crime and Punishment', Dostoevsky, was sentenced to death by firing squad for political reasons. Moments before he was to be shot, a cart delivered a letter from the Tsar commuting the sentence to four years of exile in Siberia