› added 3 years ago

180

TIL New Zealand gave a volcano the same legal rights as a living person in the same way America does with corporations.

Read more theguardian.com

via reddit.com

o6E7 TIL most of present-day Boston actually sits on man-made landfill supported by underground wooden pilings
9YJ5r TIL there was a cat named Oscar (Unsinkable Sam) who survived 3 shipwrecks in WW2. At one point he was found clinging to a piece of wood floating in the water and when found he was described as “angry but quite unharmed”.
ep95 TIL there is a drug called disulfuram that is used to treat alcoholism that will make you very physically ill if you consume even a drop of alcohol.
Q0kd TIL that English scientists in 2008 created a robot that was controlled by only rat brain cells. This robot, without any programming, effectively navigates rooms and depending on what rat brain cells they use, the robot will behave differently.
Wk8mo TIL: When public health officials first began banning the dumping of feces in the street, they were still working under miasma theory, that bad smells were what caused diseases like cholera. The germ theory of disease wasn’t developed until 1880.