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TIL that a man biked from Paris through France, Spain and Morocco, eating only out-of-date food that would have been thrown away, to draw attention to the epidemic of food wastage. He continued his campaign by crossing the Atlantic on a pedal boat, getting all of his calories from expired food.

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epmK4 TIL that American physicist Richard Feynman once faced off against a Japanese abacus expert to see which could calculate faster. The abacus consistently won on more simple operations, but Feynman was faster in division and complex calculations such as cube roots.
oW0E TIL the word “biceps” is singular (and thus “bicep” is grammatically incorrect). The plural form of “biceps” is “bicepses” (emphasis on the first syllable).
LQYXm TIL that the chainsaw was originally invented as a "tool" to aid childbirth. It was in an operation known as a symphysiotomy, a risky and grossly outdated surgical procedure to widen the pelvis and make the childbirth process a bit more likely to occur.
nWV0d TIL pilot callsigns are assigned to you by your "buddies", inspired from something stupid you did/say, your name, or your physical appearance. e.g. "Rat" for someone short and ugly; "Alphabet" if your name is too long; "Caveman" if you enjoyed survival training too much.
nWnjG TIL a series of US explosion tests by was performed in 1965 near Hawaii using 450t of explosives. 92,022 blocks of TNT were stacked in domes to simulate the shock effects of nuclear blasts without the radiation.