› added 7 years ago

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TIL that there’s a huge illegal industry that salvages old shipwrecks that predate nuclear testing to get steel untainted by atmospheric radiation.

Read more outsideonline.com

via reddit.com

QyM TIL Curiosity’s wheels have a pattern that leaves patterned tracks in the sandy surface of Mars. That pattern is used by on-board cameras to judge the distance traveled. The pattern itself is Morse code for “JPL”
PYYWg TIL the Queen of England legally owns all unclaimed Swans in British waters. Each year her Royal Swan Marker conducts a census of Swans on the River Thames
pjMG TIL that the French praised ‘Ratatouille’ for perfectly recreating the environment of a restaurant kitchen. One chef said, “When Colette teaches the young cook how you cut onions, how you cook vegetables in a pan, how you season everything — that’s it, that’s how we do it!”
X0XmR TIL that there is an ancient ocean under the Appalachian Mts called the Iapetus Ocean that pre-dates the Atlantic Ocean and salt is harvested from it.
R5Z97 TIL about plank roads. Existing as early as 4000BC they were used to allow foot, animal, and cart/wagon traffic across soft or unstable terrain.