› added 11 years ago

80

TIL Tobacco has been cultivated for so long that it no longer grows naturally in the wild.

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4k8A6 TIL of The Golden Spruce, a 300 year old, 170ft tall, Sitka spruce with a rare genetic mutation that gave its needles a golden color. It was a sacred symbol of the Haida people of British Columbia. It was cut down by Grant Hadwin, a forest engineer, as an act of protest of the logging industry.
pY86e TIL about Ron Clifford, a man who survived the 9/11 attacks after his business meeting was moved to the World Trade Center. In a tragic coincidence, Ron's sister Ruth and her 4-year old daughter Juliana were both on American Airlines Flight 175, the plane that hit the South Tower.
ddoQ TIL that some scorpions can shed their tail in order to escape a predator… but doing so also removes their anus (which is found in the tail!) and renders them unable to poop. They can live this way for another eight months.
GYDy1 TIL- Boredom is a state of stress
wa7Y TIL Isaac Newton was so obsessed with turning base metal to gold that samples of his hair showed mercury levels up to 40 times higher than average. This is considered to be the reason he went mad in his later years.