› added 5 years ago

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TIL that after the initial discovery of penicillin, scientists scrambled for a fungus that could efficiently produce it. Mary Hunt, a lab assistant, came across a cantaloupe with a golden mold, P. chrysogenum. All penicillin is effectively descended from Mary Hunt’s cantaloupe.

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4Xn8o TIL Mt. Everest was involuntarily named after George Everest, the surveyor-general of India. Andrew Waugh hoped to honor his predessor. When Everest found out, he hated the idea because the Sherpa people couldn't pronounce his name, and it didn't translate to Hindi. Waugh did it anyway.
wLwv6 TIL MDMA is on track to be a FDA approved prescription drug by 2021.
Od8X TIL 15 years later, nearly 40,000 people have health conditions related to exposed toxins from 9/11
XERYj TIL of Lucky and Flo, two Labrador Retrievers who were the first animals trained to detect optical discs by scent, in order to sniff out DVDs. After a raid on a bootleg DVD ring in Malaysia, reports said the dogs were now targeted by the DVD pirates and that a bounty had been put on their heads.
kJ6Q4 TIL of the HMS Black Joke, a former slave ship captured and given to the British West Africa squadron. Over a 5 year career she captured dozens of slave ships and freed thousands of African slaves bound for the Western Hemisphere.