› added 5 months ago

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TIL fruit flies (drosophila melanogaster) share 60% of human DNA, making them perfect for research that has led to vital strides in the treatment of cancer, autism, and diabetes. Six Nobel prizes have been awarded for research involving fruit flies.

Read more theguardian.com

via reddit.com

ADJOB TIL that Shirley Temple, the child actress and namesake of the drink, was a US ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia during the Velvet Revolution that saw democracy return to Czechoslovakia.
XV6 TIL Radiohead’s lead singer, Thom Yorke, does not know how to read music. He says sheet music is an “ineffective way of doing it.”
XEAGj TIL that the state of Texas has the power to split itself into five new states, and has been able to do so for decades.
mxnY TIL that 9 hikers in Russia were found dead in 1959. They ripped their tents open from the inside, ran barefoot through the snow at -30 degrees C, and were found with crushed skulls and one was missing their tounge. AND their clothing was found to be highly radioactive.
0V7M TIL that the heated water in the barrel of the Vickers machine gun was sometimes used to make tea for British soldiers during World War I.