› added 1 year ago

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TIL There is a Mineral called Lonsdaleite which is 58% harder than conventional Diamonds

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Xwb8 TIL that people in France who can’t afford the housing market are making homes in caves
kOg4B TIL that the USSR successfully used a 30 kilotons nuclear bomb to put out a burning gas well in Uzbekistan in 1966
J1dvB TIL About Kriegsnagelung or war nails. A fund raising system in WW1 where you paid to drive a nail into a statue. There were hundreds of these and I had never heard of them. Found one in a castle I visited this weekend.
WBLX TIL the word “apron” was originally “napron” but “a napron” shifted to “an apron”.
0MOA TIL researchers found a single genetic mutation that occurred about 10 million years ago and endowed our ancestors with a stronger ability to metabolize ethanol. As getting drunk off fruit would render one unable to defend territory or look for food, selection favored those with the new mutation.