› added 7 years ago

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TIL the Vatican declared wearing bikinis a sin in the 1950s.

Read more telegraph.co.uk

via reddit.com

a8jvJ TIL that Norman Borlaug, an agricultural scientist, developed high-yield, disease-resistant wheat that helped prevent famine and is credited with saving over 1.2 billion lives. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.
R7kW6 TIL French neuroscientist Michel Jouvet disabled the mechanism in cats brains that inhibits movement during REM sleep. While sleeping the cats moved their heads, arched their backs, and stalked invisible prey.
VMLa8 TIL that there is a court in England that convenes so rarely, the last time it convened it had to rule on whether it still existed
Z8ZEQ TIL that the melody to the medieval English folk song "Nottamun Town" was considered lost to history until musicologists found isolated, illiterate, populations in Appalachia singing the song with a common melody and lyrics.
newJo TIL The oldest operating brewery in the world, the Weihenstephan, started brewing beer 450 years before America was discovered.