› added 11 years ago

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TIL There is a type of almost-perfectly-square bacteria that lives in extremely salty lakes around the world.

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9blQ TIL After President Carter retired, he started an effort to eradicate the Guinea Worm, which infected millions of people with worms that slowly and painfully burrow out of the body over 3 months. By 2001, the infection rate was reduced by 98%, with 80% of the remaining cases in the Sudan warzone.
D1mrV TIL that locusts are actually grasshoppers. In certain conditions, their behavior changes to a solitary and timid grasshopper to a gregarious locust. This is due to the release of serotonin in their body.
XEVo8 TIL that until the Salary Grab Act was passed in 1873, President Ulysses S. Grant earned the same salary as George Washington did 80 years earlier.
0wWVN TIL The town of Colma near San Francisco has 17 cemeteries, about 1.5 million graves but only 1600 living residents. Its motto is "It's great to be alive in Colma."
v1BbL TIL Mt. Everest is actually not the tallest mountain on Earth, instead it has the tallest elevation or highest point above sea level. Mauna Kea in Hawaii is the actual tallest mountain, however most of it is underwater so it is often discredited.