/f/todayilearned
TIL A coal seam in Australia is believed to have been burning for 6,000 years, making it the oldest coal fire. The site's name is Mount Wingen but is commonly called Burning Mountain and the fire is traveling south 1m per year discoloring the ground as it goes.
en.wikipedia.orgSubmitted by jamescookenotthatone t3_11xdorh
TIL that DMVs in the US are allowed to sell some of your personal information and do. This practice is legal under federal law. For example, Florida’s DMV made $77 million and California’s DMV made $52 million in 2017 through this practice alone.
caranddriver.comSubmitted by TheKeyboardKid t3_zsu5se
TIL about Operation Bernhard. During WWII, Germany attempted to bring about the collapse of the British economy by forging ≈£130 million in British bank notes. The notes are considered among the most perfect counterfeits ever produced, and are very difficult to differentiate from legitimate notes.
en.wikipedia.orgSubmitted by rkadeYT t3_xwv3hr
TIL in 1962 a General Electric engineer named Nick Holonyak developed the first LED light bulb capable of emitting visible red light. The same bulb was used in the 1964 stop animation animated TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for Rudolph’s bioluminescent nose.
smithsonianmag.comSubmitted by undergroundgeek t3_zr9n8b
TIL: If you cut 2 different sponges up, disaggregate them (push them through a sieve), and mix the 2 cell-slurries together - the sponge cells reassociate with their own cells, but not cells of the other species. This is being studied to understand tissue repair and transplant rejection.
tandfonline.comSubmitted by Geek_Nan t3_116vvau
TIL John Steinbeck IV wrote an article in January 1968 about marijuana usage among the troops. This set off a media firestorm, & the Army began clamping down on marijuana usage, arresting ~1000 G.I.s a week for possession. Many G.I.s switched to heroin, which was odorless and thus harder to detect.
history.comSubmitted by The_Critical_Cynic t3_zzhptn
TIL Why Dog Paws Smell Like Fritos. Even the cleanest, healthiest pooch has trillions of bacteria and fungi living on their skin. That yeasty, corn chip smell is actually a normal byproduct of harmless bacteria, usually Proteus or Pseudomonas, both of which are naturally present in our environment.
hamptonveterinaryhospital.comSubmitted by Rossknight65 t3_zuypwt