Today I Learned (TIL)

6470 readers

18 users here now

You learn something new every day; what did you learn today?

/c/til is a community for any true knowledge that you would like to share, regardless of topic or of source.

Share your knowledge and experience!

Rules

Information must be true
Follow site rules
No, you don't have to have literally learned the fact today
Posts must be about something you learned

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

TIL that in 1961, the only doctor at a Soviet research station in Antarctica got appendicitis, and had to performed surgery on himself to remove his appendix. Two weeks later he resumed regular duties (www.bbc.com)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

6 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Bonus: Nowadays Australian doctors staying over the winter must remove their appendix preemptively, in order to avoid similar situations.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Eyesight will get worse over time now, but people can see better than ever... it's a bizarre contradiction.

Until you consider medicine and technology to be part of the aggregate evolutionary progress. In which case, we're racing ahead!

I don't think we see a return to traditional evolutionary pressure unless we get truly isolated populations again, coupled with a major global disaster. That, or people living in space.