› added 1 month ago

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TIL that U.S. flamethrower units had up to a 92% casualty rate on Iwo Jima, leaving few troops trained to use the weapon

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via reddit.com

5Yprp TIL of the Schiphol fly, which is a fly engraved on urinals at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. The psychology is that men will want to "wash" the fly off the urinal so they focus more when urinating, apparently lowering cleaning bills in public bathrooms.
p8eKp TIL that while colored diamonds get their color from chemical impurities absorbing light- such as yellow diamonds containing nitrogen and blue diamonds containing boron- pink diamonds have no traces of impurities, thus baffling scientists and geologists as to how they have a pink color.
AEpo TIL that General Electric in Schenectady, NY has the zip code 12345, and receives thousands of letters to Santa yearly from kids who guess Santa’s address. Employees there often use their breaks to write response letters.
D1Nxr TIL that the English "much" and Spanish "mucho" are derived from completely unrelated words. The apparent association is a phenomenon known as "false cognates."
DQNDe TIL smell is the only sense that isn’t processed by the thalamus (sensory integration center of the brain); instead, smell is directly processed in the primary olfactory cortex without us consciously registering them, which is why odors can bring back memories without us understanding why.