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TIL that a popular sort of red grapefruit was created by atomic gardening: a form of mutation breeding where plants were directly exposed to radioactive sources

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x61d0 TIL: Barbers get hair splinters in their fingers when cutting coarse hair and it's called "barber's disease."
REm9 TIL the goofy stereotypical “uniform” of french people (striped shirt, cap and red scarf) is inspired by the uniforms of “Apaches” violent gangs from Paris in the early 20th century who garroted their victims to rob them.
wLRvW TIL that the lettering on soldiers’ graves at the American Cemetery in Normandy is highlighted with sand from the D-Day landing beaches.
b9a9Q TIL since 1999 a rare fungus that can fatally spread to the brain has been growing inside people and animals at much higher rates on the coast of BC, Canada
5b5P TIL that ReCaptcha is not just to detect if you’re human, but also used as a world wide collaboration to digitize books. We digitize about 2.5 million books a year with this method.