› added 4 years ago

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TIL giant pandas are under thread of mass starvation due to bamboo mass blossoming this year. After bamboo, panda's main food source, blooms it dies and it takes 10 years for new bamboo to mature. When this happened in 1975 giant panda population dropped from 2000 to 1000 over the next 10 years.

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6EjGm TIL blood cancer patients only have a 30% chance of finding a suitable stem cell donor within their own family. Becoming a donor means you can become someone's life saving lottery ticket
Xj7r TIL The “captains daughter”, in the popular Shanty folk song “What shall we do with a drunken sailor”, is actually a punishment tool more commonly known as the Cat O Nine Tails.
nexjr TIL To make sure that their meat cooked evenly, early chefs had "Turnspit" dogs run in a hamster wheel connected to a skewer, which rotated the meat. Only one stuffed Turnspit dog remains, and his name is Whiskey.
GmvJ TIL Despite his legend as a vicious killer, the pirate “Blackbeard” was very kind to women, fell in love easily, and may have had as many as 14 wives.
nePyo TIL that laid end to end, an adult’s blood vessels could circle Earth’s equator four times!