Recent comments in /f/todayilearned

Best-Two4264 t1_je7up18 wrote

Reply to TIL that just a few days after surviving the sinking of the Titanic, actress Dorothy Gibson starred in a silent motion picture short about the disaster called "Saved from the Titanic". Gibson even wore the same clothes she wore the night of the sinking to add to the films authenticity. by PresLyndonBJohnson36

Wonder if she brought up how Rose had more than enough room to let Jack on the floating door but chose to let him die. I mean after all that y’all had been through. Anyway hit it Celine

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LupusDeusMagnus t1_je7taax wrote

Reply to comment by _austinm in TIL The oldest musical instrument in the world, a 60,000-year-old Neanderthal flute, is made from the left thighbone of a young cave bear. by gonejahman

I’m not an archaeologist but it’s a fragment of perforated bone. Could’ve been merely decorative for what matters. Just pointing out that there isn’t an unanimous agreement of what it is, and an instrument that old would require a complete reevaluation of out understanding of Neanderthal cognitive capabilities.

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ShEsHy t1_je7rkyf wrote

Reply to comment by Marconidas in TIL: The outflow from Amazon River could fill 83 Olympic sized swimming pools per second. by the_ballmer_peak

> There is simply so much water in the basin that it disturbs the idea of putting bridges or anything over the river.

Not to mention that, IIRC, the seasonal flooding is just insane, flooding an area the size of Germany or something like that. And the width of the river doesn't help, as it averages several kilometres wide even during the dry season, and several dozen kilometres during the wet season.
It's a monster, and now I wanna see some documentaries about it again :).

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keetojm t1_je7qkkl wrote

Reply to TIL that Mattiedna Johnson, born to Mississippi sharecroppers in 1918, used techniques she’d used to make things like butter, jam and soap on her childhood farm to develop techniques to capture and preserve molds for research that eventually helped in the development of drugs to fight scarlet fever. by RedditPrat

I don’t know if I should be praising her for her amazing work, or cursing her as I am allergic to penicillin. Kidding of course. My uncle survived scarlet fever.

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GeorgeOlduvai t1_je7pxft wrote

Reply to comment by groggyMPLS in TIL The oldest musical instrument in the world, a 60,000-year-old Neanderthal flute, is made from the left thighbone of a young cave bear. by gonejahman

It is unlikely to the point where it can be considered a non-zero chance happening. In other words, it's more likely for it to have been found by a Neanderthal with the holes already in it than to have had the holes accidentally placed correctly to function as an instrument.

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