› added 11 years ago

93

TIL Everyone in the world has a common ancestor that lived 5000-10000 years ago

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Bjlk TIL James Jameson, heir to the Jameson Irish Whiskey company, once bought a 10-year-old slave girl for six handkerchiefs because he wanted to sketch the event as cannibals killed, mutilated, and finally, ate her.
0B6L TIL Astronauts lose on average 1% of their bone mass a month. Most of which is excreted in their urine. They literally pee their skeleton out.
P1bdJ TIL that the Norden Bombsight used by US Bomber aircraft in WWII cost $1.1 billion to research and produce, about half as much as the Manhattan Project and over a quarter of the cost of all B-17 bombers manufactured. While successfully precise in Stateside testing it was far less accurate in combat.
1aM4 TIL The Apollo Astronauts, unable to qualify for life insurance and not insured by NASA, resorted to ‘insurance autographs’, signing just before launch in the expectation that the value would skyrocket in the event of their deaths
N7rN8 TIL that scientists have discovered a breed of banana which is immune to the fungus threatening the current kind of banana