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TIL John Knoll, the visual fx supervisor of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, won an oscar for a Pirates of the Caribbean movie and also invented Photoshop.

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ep70k TIL HPV infection is not only related to cervical cancer, but is responsible for a great number of mouth and throat cancers as well due to oral sex
yQ9NX TIL that by transmitting diseases, mosquitoes cause the deaths of more people than any other animal taxon: over 700,000 each year. It has been claimed that almost half of the people who have ever lived have died of mosquito-vectored disease.
1a79W TIL that when the deadliest tornado touched down in 1925 Missouri, people were taken by surprise. This was because the word 'tornado' was banned from US weather forecasts since the late 19th century due to hysteria. This mentality shifted after the tornado killed 675 ill-prepared residents
NXMgQ TIL that in November 1954, a woman in Alabama survived being struck by a meteorite that hit the roof of her house, bounced off a radio and hit her in upper thigh and hand. She was left with a large bruise on her side but was otherwise not seriously injured.
Eal7 TIL of HitchBOT, a robot designed to rely on humans to get from place to place. It successfully hitched rides across Canada and Germany before attempting to thumb its way from Boston to San Francisco. The experiment ended in Philadelphia when vandals left HitchBOT decapitated on a street corner.