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TIL Canada, the European Union and the U.K. do not allow surgery to be performed on octopi without anesthesia due to their cognitive abilities

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VMEb8 TIL that the first CIA director stated in a letter to Congress that "high-ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense."
w6o6 TIL during his time as President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki banned the use of antiretroviral drugs in hospitals because he did not believe HIV caused AIDS. During his presidency over 330,000 people died of AIDS.
XEKJ8 TIL that many languages from northwestern Europe all the way to southern Asia and India, including English, Greek, and Sanskrit, are all descended from a common language called Proto-Indo-European, which is believed to have been spoken in what is today southwestern Russia between 7500 and 4500 BC.
8eKL4 TIL that Tiny fern has the biggest genome ever recorded. It contains 160 billion base pairs — 50 times more than the human genome.
gMjjb TIL the Church of Scientology have argued in court several times that their policy of intimidation and harassment of "enemies of Scientology" should be considered a Constitutionally-protected "core practice" of Scientology