Recent comments in /f/todayilearned
Ludwigofthepotatoppl t1_j9viozh wrote
Reply to comment by stainedglasseye in TIL that in 1846 Christian Friedrich Schönbein discovered a formula for nitrocellulose when working in his kitchen. He spilled nitric acid and sulfuric acid on the kitchen table, wiped it up with a cotton apron, then hung it on the stove door to dry. As soon as it was dry, the apron ignited. by Do_Not_Go_In_There
Celluloid billiard balls were a thing for a while. They exploded, sometimes.
Reveal101 t1_j9vhsh1 wrote
Quick-Pick6415 t1_j9vgnvj wrote
Reply to TIL that in Ancient Greece, when Cimon was given a sentence of 'starvation till death', his daughter, Pero, kept him alive by breastfeeding her own father by Fan387
The fact that we know this but not the contents of the Library of Alexandria.
Phillyredsox t1_j9vgl6h wrote
Reply to comment by dotnetdotcom in TIL that the reason Yankee Doodle stuck a feather in his cap and called it 'macaroni' was because at one time macaroni was slang for something very fashionable or trendy by elephantsgraveyard
We use “doodle” instead of penis in my house.
seeingeyefrog t1_j9vfkeg wrote
Reply to comment by cwood1973 in TIL scientists believe people started wearing clothes between 83k and 170k years ago because that's when clothing lice diverged from head lice. by cwood1973
She's a bit hairy, but she's still the gorilla of my dreams.
Ianbeerito t1_j9veofe wrote
Reply to TIL That Toronto, the largest city in Canada, is not only south of London, Paris, and Berlin, but also south of Milan, Italy. by scorr204
Met a dude from there that thought he lived further north than all of the USA
cwood1973 OP t1_j9ve700 wrote
Reply to comment by daisy0723 in TIL scientists believe people started wearing clothes between 83k and 170k years ago because that's when clothing lice diverged from head lice. by cwood1973
Yeah, and they discovered that pubic lice in humans did not descend from human head lice. They descended from gorilla lice... which raises a whole different set of questions.
otternonsense7 t1_j9ve5hg wrote
Reply to comment by jxj24 in TIL scientists believe people started wearing clothes between 83k and 170k years ago because that's when clothing lice diverged from head lice. by cwood1973
Reddit is free, why?!
GhostOfPornPast t1_j9ve3sj wrote
Reply to comment by eatabean in TIL residents of Tangier Island, 12 miles off the coast of Virginia, have remained so isolated they still speak a dialect similar to the original colonists from the 1700s by emily_9511
Those are what they call "Moses babies." You put it in a basket and push it out to sea
thegreatjamoco t1_j9ve3jx wrote
Reply to comment by [deleted] in TIL That Toronto, the largest city in Canada, is not only south of London, Paris, and Berlin, but also south of Milan, Italy. by scorr204
Greenland is more North, South, East, and West than Iceland
SignificantOkra7208 t1_j9vduue wrote
Reply to TIL of Finnish man Lauri Allan Törni (born 1919) who fought in WW2 as both a Finnish and German soldier, and in the Vietnam War as a US Special Forces soldier. He was killed in a helicopter crash in 1965. by bermuda__
Why the fuck aren't we celebrating heroes like this? America has lost its way.
Throwaway7219017 t1_j9vcmv9 wrote
Reply to TIL That Toronto, the largest city in Canada, is not only south of London, Paris, and Berlin, but also south of Milan, Italy. by scorr204
Not sure what city is in the photo, but it’s not Toronto.
Eastern_Director_506 t1_j9vcbvk wrote
Reply to TIL that the reason Yankee Doodle stuck a feather in his cap and called it 'macaroni' was because at one time macaroni was slang for something very fashionable or trendy by elephantsgraveyard
Crazy to think that “Dude” is the abbreviated form of Yankee Doodle. It feels so far removed from its origin.
godamen t1_j9vc2g3 wrote
Reply to comment by Adrian_Alucard in TIL the way NYC has bodegas, Australia has milk bars. Modeled initially on American soda fountains, they’ve been on the decline since the 70s due to competition from supermarkets by idiomaddict
Interesting! I feel like I should know this considering how much time I've spent at wineries and wine caves in Valle de Guadalupe, MX. I suppose when you spend that much time tasting wine, certain bits of your memory fail you.
Arrow_to_the_knee1 t1_j9vbm7n wrote
Reply to TIL about Janet Parker, the last person to die of smallpox in 1978. She worked above one of the last labs in its last months of permission to study the virus. The day Janet's viral strain was confirmed, Henry Bedson, the doctor in charge of the lab, took his own life. by w0mpum
Doctor probably thought he had accidentally released the apocalypse
richincleve t1_j9vbh6j wrote
Reply to comment by JauntyTurtle in TiL that in order to make their triple album, "Sandinista!", affordable for their fans, the Clash let go of any royalties made on the first 200,000 copies sold in the UK. by thewickerstan
Funny you mentioned that.
This was THE album I’d listen to on my Walkman cassette player when flying for a home visit from college.
To this day, I think I have the entire album still memorized.
kozmonyet t1_j9vai29 wrote
Reply to comment by JauntyTurtle in TiL that in order to make their triple album, "Sandinista!", affordable for their fans, the Clash let go of any royalties made on the first 200,000 copies sold in the UK. by thewickerstan
Had a few really good tracks on it and a lot of interesting, sometimes unusual, stuff in between.
And I still want to lose this skin.
NewCanadianMTurker t1_j9va8mq wrote
Reply to comment by Elfere in TIL that in 1846 Christian Friedrich Schönbein discovered a formula for nitrocellulose when working in his kitchen. He spilled nitric acid and sulfuric acid on the kitchen table, wiped it up with a cotton apron, then hung it on the stove door to dry. As soon as it was dry, the apron ignited. by Do_Not_Go_In_There
Yeah, it seems beyond dangerous.
Pruppelippelupp t1_j9va0nr wrote
Reply to comment by GoGaslightYerself in TIL residents of Tangier Island, 12 miles off the coast of Virginia, have remained so isolated they still speak a dialect similar to the original colonists from the 1700s by emily_9511
>were from the Cornwall area of SW England.
given how they pronounce those words, yeah. makes sense. especially since they emigrated hundreds of years ago.
Elfere t1_j9v99g4 wrote
Reply to comment by NewCanadianMTurker in TIL that in 1846 Christian Friedrich Schönbein discovered a formula for nitrocellulose when working in his kitchen. He spilled nitric acid and sulfuric acid on the kitchen table, wiped it up with a cotton apron, then hung it on the stove door to dry. As soon as it was dry, the apron ignited. by Do_Not_Go_In_There
Could you imagine working along side a machine that is actively emitting enough energy to melt stuff several feet away. And it's running 24/7.
eatabean t1_j9v98xb wrote
Reply to comment by ThomasButtz in TIL residents of Tangier Island, 12 miles off the coast of Virginia, have remained so isolated they still speak a dialect similar to the original colonists from the 1700s by emily_9511
He would also drop his Jersey dialect in there.
Bewaretheicespiders t1_j9v8p7v wrote
Reply to comment by DataWeenie in TIL That Toronto, the largest city in Canada, is not only south of London, Paris, and Berlin, but also south of Milan, Italy. by scorr204
Darn Europeans, stealing our fish *and* our warmth.
square3481 t1_j9v8c6h wrote
Reply to TIL That Toronto, the largest city in Canada, is not only south of London, Paris, and Berlin, but also south of Milan, Italy. by scorr204
"Fun? In Toronto?"
"That's it! You cocky cock!"
Niosus t1_j9v7v9m wrote
Reply to comment by NewCanadianMTurker in TIL scientists believe people started wearing clothes between 83k and 170k years ago because that's when clothing lice diverged from head lice. by cwood1973
The data is what it is. If the data only supports a fairly wide range of ages, they can only report it as is. Future research is likely to narrow things down further.
And honestly, I think it's quite a reasonable range. That age range means that we only started wearing clothes after we became modern humans. There are many hundreds of thousands up to a few million years of hominids that came before that. It's not super precise, but it's pretty impressive that they managed to figure it out at all. If you read the abstract, you'll see that previous research only managed to narrow things down to between 40k and 3 million years ago. The new research is about 30x more precise. That puts the significance of this into context, doesn't it?
Finally, if you think science is not important or useful for historians, I'd urge you to look into the methods they use to figure things out. Radiometric dating, genetic sequencing to determine ancestry, anatomy, geology, climate science, plate tectonics, and so many more fields... It all comes together to interpret the tiny nuggets of evidence that still exists, into a bigger picture of what likely happened. Every field provides a fresh perspective on the evidence that can corroborate or refute hypotheses. Without the scientists, we would get so much less information from the artifacts we find.
oxero t1_j9vjsge wrote
Reply to comment by greenappletree in TIL scientists believe people started wearing clothes between 83k and 170k years ago because that's when clothing lice diverged from head lice. by cwood1973
Yep, iirc there is a Myth Buster episode that did something like set three types of lice (head hair, body hair, and pubic hair I think) and raced them for science.