› added 5 years ago

353

TIL Iceland has Europe's largest banana plantation

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via reddit.com

BgJWW TIL that despite homosexual activity being punishable by death in the country, Iran allows gender reassignment surgery, and performs more of them than any country except Thailand. In 2005 they did 7 times as many as all of the EU combined.
v1QkK TIL the word vodka means "water" in Slavic. The word originates from court documents from Poland in 1405. In the early days, spirits were used as medicine - a Polish physician wrote in 1534 that vodka could serve "to increase fertility & awaken lust"
pYGOG TIL the antibiotics used to treat the sex disease chlamydia can't be used in koala bears because the delicate balance of gut bacteria necessary to digest eucalyptus leaves becomes compromised
b6ZN0 Today I learned Winston Churchill topped the list of greatest Britons ever lived ahead of Issac Newton, Shakespeare, Darwin and Princess Diana.
9YyPX TIL the word "cancer" is derived from the Latin term for crab because translations of Hippocrates observed that in surface-level tumors, "the veins are stretched on all sides as the animal the crab has its feet". Greek tradition forbade opening the body, so the description was limited to skin.