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TIL A group of Yemeni fishermen hit the jackpot when they found a floating whale carcass in February 2021, containing a lump of ambergris worth more than US$1.5 million. Also known as “floating gold”, ambergris is a rare substance found only in the belly of sperm whales and is used to make perfume.

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via reddit.com

9Yk9B TIL that oregano was practically unheard of in the U.S. until American G.I.s in WWII returned from Italy with a taste for the "pizza herb"
XEv4r TIL Bacteriophages are viruses that prey on bacteria and archaea, and some hope that phage therapy might one day be a useful alternate to antibiotics as antibiotic resistance becomes a bigger problem in treating deadly diseases
MegVB TIL that doctors in the past used to taste the patient's urine to diagnose various diseases. If the urine tasted "wonderfully sweet as if it were imbued with honey or sugar" it was a sure sign of diabetes.
R5xQ9 TIL of an Italian named Fabrizio Quattrocchi who yelled "I'll show you how an Italian dies!" while trying to remove his hood before being executed by his Iraqi kidnappers.
kJWoW TIL, "the unconfirmed record for fastest moving manmade object is a manhole cover propelled by a nuclear detonation." is actually nothing more than a myth and Dr. Robert R. Brownlee (man responsible for legend/myth) wrote an essay about it.