› added 10 years ago

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TIL that until 11,000 years ago milk was toxic to humans, that the only way we could consume it was lowering the lactose levels by turning it into cheese, that today only one third of adults are lactose tolerant, and that the closer you get to the equator the lower the tolerance level is.

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rRgbd TIL Nik Wallenda was the first person in over a century to cross the Niagara falls on a tightrope, which required two years of work to get a special dispensation, costed over a million dolars, and had to carry with him his passport to present it when he arrived at the Canadian side.
9m5r TIL Although the US makes up about 4 percent of the world’s population, it accounts for 22 percent of the world’s prison population.
E1P5w TIL Biologists are fighting malaria using genetically modified mosquitos which are immune and thus incapable of transmitting it. In other words, the easiest way to cure malaria in humans is to cure mosquitos instead.
R7GRw TIL about "Moyenne Island" a small uninhabited island in Seychelles which one Brendon Grimshaw bought for £8,000 in 1962. With help from a partner, Rene Antoine Lafortune, Grimshaw transported and bred roughly 120 tortoises onto the island which is now the worlds smallest national park
JYrdj TIL that diplomats carry 'diplomatic bags'. These house secret information or anything pertaining to the duties of the diplomats who carry it - diplomatic bags have just the same immunity as diplomats themselves, meaning it cannot be opened/searched by law enforcement in a foreign country.