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85

TIL there is a Penny Lobby in the United States to keep the one cent coin in circulation even though it is produced at a loss. The lobby was hired by Jardin Zinc Products, who is the sole provider of penny blanks to the U.S. Government.

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69LwZ TIL: There was a German medical study on Shuriken (ninja stars) wounds. They used pig carcasses while researchers threw a cyclone shuriken, a plastic one, and a traditional one. All 3 were capable of inflicting fatal wounds. This study served to promote discussion on the German shuriken ban of 1980.
oBrRE TIL about Jaron Lanier, who at 13 convinced a university to allow him to enroll (where he took graduate-level courses) and at 16 built a canoe he sailed from Florida to Venezuela. He is considered a founding father of the field of virtual reality.
dGdE TIL that cave systems were recently discovered beneath Antarctica which are warm enough to wear t-shirts in, and in which it is said a “lost world” of new animals and plants may exist
Z8rEo TIL there is also an almost complete (85%) T-Rex skeleton in Taiwan, owned by a private collector on display at his museum
rRRk1 TIL homosexuality might be caused by the mother's immune system---which may mistake male-specific proteins on the Y chromosome as pathogens and "attack" them, leading to developmental quirks