The human brain has about one billion neurons. Each neuron forms about 1,000 connections to other neurons, making up more than a trillion connections. If each neuron could only help store a single memory, you might have only a few gigabytes of storage space. But neurons combine so that each one helps with many memories at a time, exponentially increasing the brain's memory storage capacity to something close to 2.5 petabytes (or a million gigabytes).
To put that into perspective, imagine your brain like a digital TV recorder. 2.5 petabytes would be enough to hold three million hours of TV shows — you could leave the TV running continuously for more than 300 years.
That's a lot of storage. So why waste it? Today I Learned, often shortened as TIL, is one of the biggest communities on Reddit. It has 25.9 million members, constantly sharing interesting trivia like the location of the clearest lake in the world or the reason why Nas listed his then 7-year-old daughter as an executive producer on his fifth album. To put some of your 2.5 petabytes to good use, we rounded up some of the best posts we could find on the subreddit.
#1
TIL that March 12th, 1990, over 60 disability rights activists abandoned their mobility aids and climbed, crawled, and edged up the 83 stone steps of the U.S Capitol, demanding the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which had been stalled in Congress. It was called the 'Capitol Crawl'.
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653points
#2
Nas listed his then 7-year-old daughter, Destiny Jones, as an executive producer on his fifth studio album Stillmatic to ensure she would always receive royalty checks from the album.
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589points
#3
TIL the medals in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games are made from metals recovered from recycled cell phones collected since 2017.
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551points
#4
TIL: In 400BC, the Persians invented a way to make ice in the desert using evaporation cooling
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535points
#5
TIL the clearest lake in the world is the Blue Lake located in Nelson, New Zealand. Visibility in the lake is up to 80 metres meaning the water is considered almost as optically clear as distilled water.
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478points
#6
TIL the US provided Laos with funds and concrete to expand an airport which could serve as a base for US fighter jets during the Vietnam War. But as the funds and concrete arrived before any contract was signed, Laos decided instead to build a memorial to soldiers who died in World War II.
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473points
#7
TIL Octopuses are one of the most intelligent creatures on the planet, capable of solving complex puzzles, using tools, escaping captivity, and planning ahead in the future.
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465points
#8
TIL of Eric Moussambani, who had never seen an olympic sized swimming pool before the 2000 olympics. He recorded the slowest time in 100m freestyle history at 1:52.72, however won his heat as all other competitors false started. He is now a national hero the head swimming coach of Equatorial Guinea
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449points
#9
TIL of Charlie Walker, the first non-government individual to fly into space. After NASA deemed him unqualified and rejected his 1978 application for astronaut, he co-developed a space bound device which required him to accompany it. Walker flew into space three times with the device he co-patented.
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392points
#10
TIL Drowning people almost never shout, thrash or wave for help. 10% of children who drown are supervised by adults who don't recognise the signs.
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367points
#11
TIL Crowing first at dawn is a privilege reserved for the highest ranking rooster.
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343points
#12
TIL Sony sold its waterproof Walkman in a bottle of water to prove it was really waterproof.
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321points
#13
TIL Salvador Dali once conned Yoko Ono into paying $10,000 for a single blade of grass. Yoko had offered to pay that amount for one of his mustache hairs. He substituted the blade of grass because he thought that Yoko Ono was a witch and might use his hair in a spell.
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315points
#14
TIL In the 1930's a selling point for TP started by Northern Tissue company was that their toilet paper was "splinter free"
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310points
#15
TIL Bruce Lee was the winner of the 1958 Hong Kong Cha-Cha Dancing Championship. He kept a card with 108 different cha-cha dance steps in his wallet and developed new moves which he wrote down in a personal notebook labeled "Cha-Cha Fancy Steps."
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304points
#16
TIL beavers build their dams as an instinct to stop the sounds of water leaks. If a speaker is playing just the sound of running water, a beaver will build a dam over it. This is even if it’s over concrete with no visible water, or if an actual nearby leaky water source is quieter than the speaker.
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293points
#17
TIL astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who as a student discovered pulsars, credits her discovery to impostor syndrome and a fear of being kicked out of college; “I’m a bit of a fighter, so I decided until they threw me out I would work my very hardest". That discovery earned the 1974 Nobel Prize.
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288points
#18
TIL that when his father died of a heart attack, Ronald Mallett resolved to discover time travel to see him again. He went on to earn a PhD in physics and become a professor, and has been working on plans for a time machine ever since.
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286points
#19
TIL In 1908, the Russian shooting team arrived at the London Olympics twelve days late. The Russian team had made sure to arrive a few days before the event was scheduled, but Russia still used the Julian calendar. The UK had switched to the Gregorian calendar 150 years earlier
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285points
#20
TIL dying coral reefs lack the sound attract new fish. Speakers playing healthy reef noises at dying coral reefs increases species diversity and doubles fish abundance.
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271points