› added 3 months ago

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TIL Beaver anal secretions have been used as a vanilla flavor substitute for certain foods and luxury cosmetics.

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ZpGYp TIL chemist Sherwood Rowland won the Nobel Prize for discovering that CFCs damage the ozone, which shields Earth from UV radiation. His work led to the Montreal Protocol, a global treaty to phase out CFCs, helping heal the ozone.
4W85 TIL The TV show, Monk, was originally written for Michael Richards. He turned down the role and Tony Shalhoub went on to win 3 Emmys with 8 nominations for the character.
yVow8 TIL: That after watching males succeed at a series of puzzling tasks, female birds traded their simple-minded beaus for more cognitively competent partners.
b9KP0 TIL New Zealand was home to some of the largest birds on Earth around 600 years ago, the Moas. These ostrich-like birds were as tall as 3m but went extinct due to overhunting by the first Polynesian settlers.
BLKk TIL You can count to 12 on one hand by using your thumb to count the bones of each finger. This might explain the base 12 and base 60 number systems we use for telling time and measuring angles.