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TIL that when the code-breakers at Bletchley Park were short of cribs, they would ask the RAF to mine specific areas of the North Sea, so that they could look for the name of the area and the word “mine” in subsequent German naval reports. This was known as “Gardening”.

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OGYw1 TIL that most non-human primate infants actively use their hands to help themselves out of the birth canal. Human infants do not, but their grip strength is much higher during the hours immediately after they are born.
JYDNk TIL: The block Michelangelo carved David out of posed several problems. Called “the Giant,” it had been quarried 40 years earlier and had started to weather from the elements. Worse, other sculptors had tried roughing out a basic shape but given up midway. The final sculpture thus befits its name.
16QRP TIL that Missouri is likely called the Show-Me State in reference to a speech from a Congressman in 1899: "I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me."
1aVjX TIL the composition of breast milk will change over the course of a single feeding based on the baby's nutritional needs, which are communicated via chemical info from baby's saliva absorbed into the areola.
pYnlN TIL that carriers of Phenylketonuria, an inherited genetic disorder of the metabolism, are protected against the fungal toxin Ochratoxin A that occurs in grains. This accounts for the persistence of the allele in certain populations: it confers a "selective advantage."