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TIL that in 1966 the glass roof of the Houston Astrodome was painted to reduce glare. However, this reduced the amount of sunlight in the stadium and most of the grass died. A synthetic grass surface called ChemGrass was installed in its place, and Astroturf got its name.

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0w6ej TIL: washing your hands with hand sanitizer in hospitals is contributing to the development of deadly superbugs (bacteria)
wLPVM TIL that in the 1960s, the U.S. Air Force drew up plans for a 4000-ton nuclear space battleship. It would have been armed with 500 nuclear missiles, propelled by nuclear explosions, and been entirely feasible with contemporary technology. President Kennedy was horrified by the idea and cancelled it
7rGdL TIL apes never ask questions. Apes are able to learn sign language and even communicate using it, apes have never attempted to learn new knowledge by asking humans or other apes. Apes can't realize that others can know things they don't. It's a concept that separates humans from apes.
WkJXY TIL The Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima named by it’s pilot Col Paul Tibbets, after his mother, Enola Gay Tibbets, who was named after a character of the book, Enola; or, Her fatal mistake. With eerily prophetic passages including “He is the bird of ill omen.”
7rlOp TIL that after receiving a bad review on his book The World Rose, author Richard Brittain tracked down the reviewer's name and place of work from Facebook, took a train from England to Scotland, went to the store where she was working, and attacked her with a wine bottle.