› added 1 month ago

5

TIL that Mehmed the Conqueror spared the lives of young men condemned to death if he found them attractive, and added them to his harem.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

x6ajw TIL: If you cut 2 different sponges up, disaggregate them (push them through a sieve), and mix the 2 cell-slurries together - the sponge cells reassociate with their own cells, but not cells of the other species. This is being studied to understand tissue repair and transplant rejection.
eppL TIL nearly all people with Down syndrome exhibit Alzheimer’s Disease by age 40, due to the fact that they have an extra copy of the gene responsible for forming the plaques that lead to the disease.
nW4kb TIL the IDEA act and other laws for accommodating and integrating disabled children at public schools are a direct result of racial integration precedents set by the Civil Rights Movement.
VMlo8 TIL, Aboriginal Australian tribes have no words for left, right, forward, or backward in their language. They only use cardinal directions to describe locations of everything around them, knowing where north and south are at all times, essentially being human compasses
0dJwN TIL The Zero Milestone is a zero mile marker monument in Washington, D.C. intended as the initial milestone from which all road distances in the United States should be measured when it was built.