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TIL a UK heart surgeon has pioneered a new way to repair damaged hearts after being inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s medical drawings.

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via reddit.com

YpmV7 TIL That more than 60% of Japanese couples choose a Christian style wedding while less than 1% of Japanese residents are Christian, leading to the creed: “Born Shinto, live nonreligious, wed Christian and die Buddhist.”
e1gg TIL that women’s fertility affects their preference for male partners. When most fertile, they prefer men with more “masculine” traits; when pregnant or in a non-fertile part of the cycle, they seek the “nice-guy provider”. Men can tell; lap dancers earn more money when ovulating.
7rbXP TIL of Thomas McKeller, who - at 26 - became the primary muse and lover of one of America's most prolific artists, John Singer Sargent. An African-American, McKeller was recreated solely as white figures in Sargent's public works - including the famed ceiling murals at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.
wXrY TIL that a scientist breached security at Los Alamos by leaving an orange on his desk, and that any spherical object became a “nuclear secret” once it passed into a secure area of the laboratory, as it could be taken as a model for the plutonium pit that drives a nuclear weapon.
ep4bD TIL Alaska is not an island and is actually attached to the continental United States.