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TIL a hybrid of cattle and bison is called a Beefalo

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WkEmB Today I learned of Hurdy-Gurdy, a medieval stringed instrument that produces sound by a hand crank-turned, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings.
AGwg TIL architects designed an ‘Earthscraper’ in response to a 10-story height limit on buildings in Mexico City. Reaching 1000 feet deep and shaped like a inverted pyramid, pedestrians walking over its transparent top ('base’) would be able to look down toward the bottom ('peak’) of the structure.
6E05X TIL During the Cold War, Soviet Union compiled a ultra meticulous map of Washington DC that are far more detailed than typical city maps we are all familiar with including details like precise width of roads, load-bearing capacity of bridges and location of water reservoir and pumping stations
kOjWB TIL our brain has shrunk over the past 20,000 years. On top of the gradual effects of modernisation on our brain size, chronic stress and anxiety will, if not attended to, shrink your brain further and far more rapidly than you might imagine.
ZmJR TIL the original bikini swimsuit was named after the then-recent Bikini Atoll nuclear test because the inventor expected the swimsuit to be “equally explosive”