› added 2 years ago

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TIL Alpha Centauri, the nearest solar system, is 4.4 lights years away or about 40 trillion km's. It would take roughly 18,000 years to reach it with our current technology.

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d9Y8 TIL that the bacteria responsible for the bubonic plague, ‘Yersinia pestis’, spread to humans through fleas by inhibiting the flea’s blood feeding, causing the flea to regurgitate the infected blood into the host’s wound and go on an infectious biting spree in a futile attempt to feed itself.
Wk6m9 TIL that during World War I, French prostitutes with severe cases of syphilis charged higher rates than uninfected prostitutes, because soldiers infected with syphilis were removed from the front line
69gg8 TIL there are 2 different types of spiders generally referred to as ‘Daddy Long Legs’ in North America & neither are, in fact, poisonous to humans as some say
LQlwZ TIL that 150,000 people speak the native language of Corsican. Always thought they just speak French there.
wLop1 TIL of Giordano_Bruno, who was the first person outside of ancient Greece to postulate that the sun was just another star and that other stars likely had their own planets. In 1600 he was burned at the stake by the Catholic Church for heresy.