› added 7 years ago

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TIL that there is a monument to laboratory mice at a university in Siberia. The mouse is wearing a lab coat and knitting a DNA double helix, symbolizing the gradual progress of DNA research.

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wMDY TIL the Coast Guard trained pigeons to assist in finding people lost at sea. They sat in a dome attached to a helicopter, pressing a lever after spotting life preservers or debris. They had a 90% success rate in initial trials.
oRglA TIL A tautological place name is a place name where different parts of the name have the same meaning, for example, "Lake Chad" (Lake Lake), "Mississippi River" (Big River River), "Sahara Desert" (Deserts Desert)
5YGQr TIL A solar filtered telescope with a magnification of 50x to 100x is needed to be able to see the transit of Venus across the sun. Binoculars with 7x magnification can also project an image that shows Venus as a very tiny black dot on the disc of the sun
XEReD TIL about ‘Redemption Roasters’ world’s first behind bars specialty coffee company in the U.K. who train offenders professionally in the art of roasting and barista skills and help find jobs in their own coffee shops or with partners.
aaZb TIL the Nissan Z series was originally named the Fairlady by the president of Nissan in Japan. The U.S. head knew this wouldn’t appeal to the American male market, so he removed the Fairlady labels from the cars that arrive in the U.S. and replaced them with the internal code for the project, 240-Z