› added 9 months ago

454

TIL that being able to roll your tongue is NOT a genetic trait

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KrWR TIL that from 2004 to 2011, American and American-trained Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and on at least six occasions were wounded by, chemical weapons remaining from years earlier in Saddam Hussein’s rule.
epBe5 TIL Roman concrete's durability is a result of hot mixing, which creates lime clasts that "self-heal" cracks whenever they are exposed to water.
P157w TIL that the punctuation mark ?! is called an 'interrobang,' invented in the 1960s to combine a question mark and exclamation point for rhetorical questions.
e0DrJ TIL a study about class differences in 18th & 19th century England, showed that on average, a wealthy 16-year old boy was 8.5 inches taller than a poor 16-year old boy, as a result of malnourishment and living standards
ADn7d TIL that in 1995, after six years on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, Katalin Karikó, the woman behind the mRNA technology, got demoted because her bosses saw no point in pressing on