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TIL: 1) The Latin word for "ants" is "formica". 2) Formic acid is produced by ants. 3) Engineers invented a plastic laminate to replace mica as an electrical insulation and named it Formica ("for mica", get it? ). 4) Despite its name, Formica is not made with formic acid. Whew!

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R5kgQ TIL: Paper Sons were the result of anti-immigration laws passed in the way 1900s to limit Chinese immigration into the US. Chinese people would fake birth certificates that showed they were children of people who had already immigrated (making them sons/daughters on paper).
rmPy TIL that in Chernobyl they planted hemp to remove toxins from the soil in a process that’s called “phytoremediation”
Ja71 TIL that the search engine Bing was originally going to be titled Bang because it was easy to spell and remember (“…I just banged Margaret Thatcher to see why everyone was freakin out”)
JRB1 TIL Polygraph tests are only ~61% accurate, yet they can still be used as evidence in court in many places.
XEYoP TIL after a secret program conducted by the US in the Marshal Islands in the 1950s, parts of the island complex still have radiation higher than Chernobyl or Fukushima even so many decades after the now declassified experiment