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TIL we estimate humans began wearing clothes 70,000 years ago because that's when head lice diverged genetically from body lice.

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WkZ9o TIL City water supplies in Minneapolis, USA and Warsaw, Poland use a "bio-monitoring system." Consisting of clams and mussels that alert them to pollutants via text message or switches. When the clams close, a spring glued to their head completes a switch and alerts the operators in Warsaw.
P1VMZ TIL heart cockles, heart-shaped clams, have shells with natural fibre-optic windows that channel sunlight to feed symbiotic algae while blocking UV rays. This 2024 discovery is the first known case of a living organism using bundled fibre optics.
6EddW TIL about an outbreak of mass hysteria in Belgium in 1999; hundreds reported cramping, nausea and headaches allegedly from drinking Coca-Cola products. Coca-Cola recalled 30 million products, claiming it had identified the cause of the epidemic. Toxicology experts found no evidence of contamination.
v1Z1x TIL Time magazine had been naming a "Man of the Year" since 1927, but broke with tradition in 1982 to name the computer the "Machine of the Year". Ironically, the writer of the story wrote it on a typewriter, since Time's newsroom would not get computers for another year.
16XL7 TIL the drawling narrator of the 1955 Tex Avery cartoon "The First Bad Man" (about a cowboy villain in stone-age Texas) was country music singer Tex Ritter, father of "8 Simple Rules" star John Ritter