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TIL because of constant famines during the British Raj Indian genes got starvation adapted and resistant to insulin. As a result, today Indians are four and six times more likely to get type 2 diabetes than white people. Over 100 million people have diabetes in India.

Read more theguardian.com

via reddit.com

rNdQy TIL the Cold War was partially prompted by an event in Ottawa when a Soviet cipher clerk working at the Soviet embassy to Canada defected & exposed the Soviet spy network in Canada, leading to allied countries discovering Soviet spies & informants within their own governments
oWyL TIL there’s a a fake bomb detector produced in the UK that has been sold to 20 countries in the Middle East and Far East, including Iraq and Afghanistan, for as much as $60,000 per unit. The fake bomb detector is still in use by police and army in those countries.
N7J88 TIL There is such a thing as weekend jail for nonviolent crimes, where you check in on Friday and get released on Sunday
eAP4 TIL Tom Morello; guitar player for bands like Audioslave and Rage Against the Machine, was the child of the very first elected president of Kenya
bM1Z TIL that in 1968 famous Science Fiction writer and atheist Issac Asimov published “Asimov’s guide to the Bible”. Asimov treats the secular aspects of the Bible with intellectual instead of theological commentary.