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TIL in 1993 when a US Military food scientist was asked what should be used in the pictograph instructions to prop up the heater of their new “Meal, Ready-to-Eat” rations, he replied “I don’t know. Let’s make it a rock or something.” The rock illustration and the iconic phrase remain on MREs today.

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7eab TIL a Berkeley student named George Dantzig once mistook two unproved theorems that his professor wrote on the chalkboard as a homework assignment and ended up solving both within a few days
lYgG TIL coconut water can be used intravenously to treat dehydration because of its exact likeness to blood plasma
ZY74 TIL all English-language Wikipedia articles amount to just 44 GB – and they have it conveniently available for download.
9wNN7 TIL that, in the 1940s, Coca-Cola produced a clear version of Coke for Soviet officials that looked like vodka so they could drink it in public despite embargoes on American goods
Eg8ZX TIL the "OMG" cosmic ray was (probably) a proton travelling at 99.99999999999999999999951% of the speed of light. It would take 215,000 years for a photon to gain a 1 centimeter lead on this proton.