› added 5 months ago

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TIL that during a 19th-century smallpox outbreak, Mi’kmaq healers used tea from the purple pitcher plant to treat patients—and British doctors later confirmed it actually worked.

Read more pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

via reddit.com

jZRE TIL The Great Pyramid is aligned with Machu Picchu, the Nazca lines and Easter Island along a straight line around the center of the Earth
GYy14 TIL the common fitness target of 10,000 steps/day came from a Japanese pedometer company who gave their product a name that means "the 10,000-step meter” because the Japanese character for “10,000” resembles a person walking: 万. There is no known science behind a goal of 10,000 steps
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oBv97 TIL that in Ukraine, Christmas is celebrated with a twelve course meal, but can't begin to eat until the youngest child watches for the first evening star to appear.
ng7d TIL the phenomenon of “island gigantism”, in which the size of animals isolated on an island increases dramatically in comparison to their mainland counterparts.