› added 5 years ago

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TIL Martin Van Buren was the first president who was born after the United States declared independence, and the first to have English as a second language.

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d8Ybd TIL about Ensign Wasp. This small insect, occasionally found inside our houses, is actually beneficial to our homes because it feeds on cockroach eggs, thus controlling cockroach infestations :)
4kRlg 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!
neK4r TIL Near the end of filming the movie Matilda, Mara Wilson's mother passed away from breast cancer. Director Danny DeVito was able to show a near final cut of the film to her so she could see her daughters performance. The movie is also dedicated to her memory.
4kK7a TIL: Sweden conducted the Vipeholm experiment on the intellectual disabled in the 1950s, where they fed them a large amount of sweets to see how it affects the formation of cavities. It was sponsored by the sugar industry and dentists. It sound experiment, but deemed unethical years after.
5Y50r TIL Medieval scholar Al-Biruni,after accurately measuring earth’s radius and judging by the size of Asia and Africa,predicted the existence of a landmass in the ocean between Asia And Europe,similar in size to the known continents and with similar geological features,likely inhabited by humans