› added 12 years ago

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TIL that grapefruits didn’t exist before the 18th century. They were the result of crossing an orange and pomelo.

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via reddit.com

dYZ8 TIL that during WW2 a “Bat Bomb” was created. As the bomb descended the bats would warm up and awaken from hibernation. At 1,000 ft. altitude, the bomb would open and 1000+ bats, each carrying a tiny time-delayed napalm incendiary device would emerge.
VMgYZ TIL of 102-year-old cyclist Robert Marchand who held the 100-plus category one-hour record of 24 kilometres and 251 metres until he broke his own record at the age of 102 years riding 26 kilometers and 927 metres in one hour.
awPmA TIL that according researchers at London School of Economics, unmarried and childless women lead “happier” lives, are likely to outlive their married child-rearing counterparts and are healthier than them.
KO04G Protons are made up of even smaller particles called quarks, so you might expect that simply adding up the quarks’ masses should give you the proton’s mass. However, that sum is much too small to explain the proton’s bulk. And new, detailed calculations show that only 9 percent of the proton’s heft comes from the mass of constituent quarks. The rest of the proton’s mass comes from complicated effects occurring inside the particle, researchers report in the Nov. 23 Physical Review Letters.
bMeQ TIL that Frank Welker, the voice behind Scooby-Doo, Fred, Megatron, and more, has over 1,000 credits in voice acting, and, if the revenue from his credits was totaled, would be the highest-grossing actor of all time.