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TIL Freshwater snails carry a parasitic disease called schistosomiasis, which infects nearly 250 million people, mostly in Asia, Africa and South America. β€œIt's one of the world's most deadly parasites,” says Susanne Sokolow, a disease ecologist at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station

yVoKp TIL there's a species of fish (the Devils Hole pupfish) whose entire native range is a portion of a single underground pool in Death Valley.
vAp7 TIL an activist group in Zurich dyed fountains red to protest tampons being taxed at a rate consistent with luxury products instead of the rate used for daily use items.
5YEEB TIL That The highest wind speed ever recorded occurred on Barrow Island, Australia. On April 10th, 1996, an unmanned weather station measured a 253 mph wind gust during Tropical Cyclone Olivia. This eclipsed the previous record of 231 mph which was set by Mt. Washington on the 12th April 1934.
XdY8 TIL that the man behind the ban of marijuana Harry Anslinger may have done so because of racism, reportedly stating that black and Mexican were the primary users. It was banned even though there was no scientific evidence of it being dangerous to mental health.
5YRdD TIL that Billy Beane, the GM of the Oakland A's made famous through his use of "Moneyball" statistical approach to baseball, was in 2019 elected into the Baseball Reliquary Shrine of the Eternals where statistical accomplishment is not a criteria for election