› added 7 years ago

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TIL Hippos can sleep underwater using a reflex that allows them to bob up, take a breath, and sink back down without waking up.

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via reddit.com

xVByo TIL of Sila Sutharat, a roadside vendor in Phetchaburi, Thailand, who for 20 years has used a grill made of 1,000 mirrors to focus sunlight to cook chicken and pork. A chicken cooks in about 12 minutes.
Reg1 TIL that nearly a third of all the city Aldermen elected in Chicago between 1972 and 2012 have been convicted on corruption charges at one time or another.
ARL4 TIL of Maximilian Kolbe, a priest in Auschwitz who volunteered to die in the place of a stranger who cried out “My wife! My children!”. In the gas chamber, he kept all the others sentenced to death calm and was the last one to die.
X0ed6 TIL of the Loughton incinerator thefts. Between 1988 and 1992 at the Bank of England's incinerator plant, four employees stole more than £600,000 of used bank notes due for incineration. They were eventually found out when the husband of one tried to deposit £100k in used £20s and £50s.
wodXM TIL the Penan people in Malaysia have such a highly generous / egalitarian society that they have no word for 'thank you' because help is assumed and therefore doesn't require a 'thank you'.