› added 11 years ago

113

TIL Father Damien, a Catholic Priest, volunteered to help an island leper colony, saying “I make myself a leper to be with the lepers.” There he turned shacks into painted houses, cultivated farms, and started schools. Doing so he contracted leprosy himself. He was canonized a saint in 2009.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

W7QW9 TIL oyster mushrooms are not just a source of food, they can also be made into mycellium, which in turns can be used to make bricks and house furniture. They can also be used to decontaminate the environment, for example to treat soil that had been polluted with diesel oil.
vgX8 TIL that babies are believed to naturally follow the philosophy of solipsism, where the only certain fact is the existence of one’s own mind. Eventually, babies realize that other people have experiences like them and reject solipsism.
69BpX TIL: In Japan Christmas Eve is usually considered a romantic day for couples and can be considered the "Japanese Valentines Day". On Christmas Day they eat traditional Christmas foods such as Christmas cake (sponge cake with whip cream and strawberries) and Kentucky Fried Chicken ordered in advance
wLmp6 TIL Genetic mutations among Tibetan individuals helps them to live and work in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, which features elevations as high as 14,800 feet. One of these variants was inherited from an extinct group of humans known as the Denisovans, a sister species to the Neanderthals.
pYEaO TIL: The Pacific Ocean terminus of the Panama Canal is actually to the east of the Atlantic Ocean terminus.