› added 1 year ago

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TIL in December 1967, then sitting Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt went missing while swimming and was never found. Shortly after, a community swimming pool in Melbourne was named after him...

d8bjK TIL There is an enzyme called telomerase which reverses the aging process by replacing the junk DNA, which normally degrades over time, that protects coding DNA, and scientists think it is the key to immortality. Species like jellyfish and lobsters are biologically immortal because of this.
1aYBr TIL that prohibitionist president Rutherford Hayes held dinners at the White House with punch that was rumored to be spiked with rum by the staff. The truth was that Hayes himself had spiked the punch with non-alcoholic rum flavoring.
l7o7N TIL that Antarctica has a museum, gift shop and post office in the same building, known as Port Lockroy, which is all open to the public. It is operated by the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust. Around 70,000 cards are sent from the post office each year.
0k9v TIL In 1991, when President Bush proposed placing the DARPA network into the public domain, Democratic Rep. (now Senator) Chuck Schumer argued “it would be a waste of the taxpayers’ money” to essentially give away the Defence Department technology. DARPAnet became the basis for the Internet.
WkGgA TIL Pearl Jam discovered Ticketmaster was adding a service charge to all their concert tickets without informing the band. The band then created their own outdoor stadiums for the fans and testified against Ticketmaster to the United States Department of Justice