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TIL the longest lighting strike on record was 400 miles (700km) long, stretching from the Atlantic coast of Brazil into Argentina

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P1lJn Today I learned that albino redwood trees exist but they cannot produce their own food so they are considered parasites because they rely on nutrients from neighboring trees
kJnr7 TIL a poorly designed wireless communications system contributed to deaths of 343 firefighters on 9/11. Back then, emergency services ran many different communication systems which couldn't talk to each other, hindering the evacuation of the firefighters and the overall emergency response.
P118n TIL: Gastroliths are rocks swallowed by some animals that remain in the digestion track to aid in digestion
b9Yga TIL Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is being eaten alive by millions of venomous sea stars known as crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS). Scientist have developed a new robot to hunt and kill these sea stars—a murderous, autonomous underwater vehicle called RangerBot. It kills with a single shot of bile
VGX4 TIL King James II banned golf and football because his archers spent so much time playing they started to suck at archery.