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TIL Alan Shepard was 47 during Apollo 14 and was told he was "too old" to walk on the moon as he was the oldest astronaut to have flown in space at the time. He hadn't flown anything for ten years since 1961 and had been diagnosed with a rare condition of the inner ear called Meniere's disease

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oRexY TIL The term “Romance languages” has nothing to do with being languages of love, but rather because they all descend from the same parent language- Latin, the language of the Romans. The English term “romance” descends from the French word for a particular Latin dialect called Romanicus.
69mrX TIL if you have blurry vision and stare at a dim point-source light in a dark room, focusing on the irregularities in the blurry circle of light, you will see microscopic solid and liquid particulates in your eye. This is an entoptic phenomenon. (see desc)
166nd TIL about Shiranui, or Unknown Fire, an atmospheric ghost light seen in the water off Kyushu, Japan. When approached, the lights appear to get farther away. They were formerly believed to be the lamps of the Dragon God, and fishing was prohibited when they were seen.
p8aeN TIL that there are poop banks that will pay you for your stools. The stool samples are processed and are used to treat people suffering from infections of C. difficile -- a bacteria that causes severe gastrointestinal distress. Dedicated poopers can make up to $13,000 a year.
rNWoy TIL Enthusiasm was originally used to refer to someone possessed by God and Socrates taught that the inspiration of poets was a form of enthusiasm