› added 1 year ago

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TIL about Nitrogen Triiodide - the most sensitive compound in the world. It is so sensitive, exposure to alpha particles can cause it to explode.

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d8EO8 TIL 15 years after having been shot and left for dead during a forced march to a concentration camp, physicist Bruno Touschek initiated and drove the development of AdA -- the world's first antimatter storage ring.
KO18B TIL: The Driscoll Bridge in NJ is the widest in the world (15 lanes)
XEK1X TIL about Josef "Joybubbles" Engressia, a blind 7 year old who discovered that whistling the fourth E above middle C (a frequency of 2600 Hz) would interfere with AT&T's automated telephone systems and activate phone switches.
nebe7 TIL about City-Gods. In Folk Chinese Religion, adherents believe that when a city is founded, a local deity shall emerge in heaven & watch over that specific city & its people. These deities are usually deified historic local officials, or local spirits & Dragons living in nearby holy sites/rivers.
rRxL1 TIL in 2001, a scientist successfully trained pigeons to distinguish between paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Marc Chagall - including paintings the pigeons had never seen before.