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293

TIL Human DNA begins to degenerate at 55 years old

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mxb4Y TIL Planthoppers (Issus coleoptratus) has the only mechanical gears ever found in Nature. The first natural design that mechanically functions like our geared systems contrasting the gear-like structures previously found on other animals like the spiny turtle which were purely ornamental.
bVrj TIL 450 years ago King Charles V of Spain commissioned a mechanical monk, an automaton, to be made as thanks to God for saving his son. This is one of the first robots made by humans. It still works to this day
8ad7a TIL North Korea, "world's worst Internet black hole," restricts Internet access to high-level Party officials and then only "to browse fan pages of the leading Kim dynasty"; in response, "North Koreans [are] buying properties close to foreign embassies in a bid to access their wifi."
GoQN TIL Harvard Law School listed a white professor who was 1/32nd cherokee as a minority professor in response to criticisms about a lack of faculty diversity
R5r5a TIL that, in the 1870’s, Oscar Wilde was madly in love with a young woman named Florence Balcome for two years, only to lose her to author Bram Stoker