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TIL An award older than the Nobel Prize the 133-year-old James Craig Watson Medal was recently handed to Professor Lisa Kewley, for her outstanding work in Astronomy. This award is held every two years.

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5v6D TIL In 1983, a 61-year-old potato farmer named Cliff Young won a 544 mile endurance race because he ran throughout the night while the younger ‘professional’ athletes slept.
PQ6O TIL execution by elephant was commonly used in South and Southeast Asia for centuries because, unlike the horse, the elephant has no qualms about killing humans, and can be trained in detail: told to make the death quick and merciful (crush the head) or prolonged and painful (tear limb from limb)
X00YD TIL the same artist, Jacque Louis David, painted the Death of Marat, the Oath of the Horatii, and two of the best-known portraits of Napoleon
69BN7 TIL that cyanide is present in almonds, apricots, apples, oranges, flaxseed, bamboo shoots, and foods containing cassava
ggo7 TIL An ad campaign used DNA found on discarded cigarette butts to construct digital portraits to publicly shame litterbugs