› added 4 years ago

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TIL that seemingly pointless zigzags on the roads in the Western US are there to compensate the road grid for the curvature of Earth.

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78w8O TIL Green-backed Firecrown Hummingbirds Use a Rare Moss (Less Than 1% of Forest Biomass) to Make Up 97% of Their Nests for Its Antipathogen Properties, Boosting Chick Survival
GYGp5 TIL of the microraptor gui, a four-winged feathered dinosaur that seemed to specialize in hunting birds.
vNnK TIL King Gustav III of Sweden commissioned an experiment to prove coffee was poisonous. Overseen by two doctors, a prisoner was forced to drink three pots of coffee a day until he died. Both doctors and the King died before the prisoner.
BjJK TIL of Cymothoa exigua, a parasite that consumes the tongue of a fish, attaches itself to the blood supply, and becomes a newly functioning tongue, gorging itself until the host slowly dies of starvation. It’s one of few known parasites that consume and replace a host’s organs.
4XLww TIL that Republicans are called the right, and Democrats are called the left, because of seating arrangements of various legislative parties in France in the late 1700’s. Supporters of the king sat on the right of the Speaker, and supporters of the revolution on the left.