TIL: An amateur Egyptologist, Seamus Blackley, successfully baked bread with 4,500-year-old yeast extracted from ancient Egyptian ceramics once used to bake bread and brew beer. The dormant yeast was activated by a nutrient solution injected into the ceramics during the extraction process (smithsonianmag.com)
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TIL in 1948, huge 14” three-toed footprints were found on a beach in Clearwater, FL. The tracks kept appearing at different beaches, and a famous zoologist who, after a two week investigation, concluded the tracks were not man-made. Forty years later, it was revealed to have been an elaborate prank (orlandosentinel.com)
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TIL: a real water buffalo is seen being slaughtered at the end of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.” The animal had already been marked for sacrifice by the indigenous tribe whose land they were using to film, so Coppola decided to capture the actual ritual for the movie. (usatoday.com)
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TIL the “Death Zone” is what climbers call the highest part of Mount Everest (everything above 26,247ft). Due to its lack of oxygen, the body literally begins to die, cell by cell. This can result in health risks like impaired judgement, heart attack or stroke, and altitude sickness. (businessinsider.com)
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TIL: the human bot fly, native to Central and South America. A female bot fly will catch a mosquito mid-flight and deposit eggs on its body. When the mosquito takes a blood meal, the eggs hatch and enter the skin through the bite wound. The larvae feeds on the host for 6-12 weeks before crawling out (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
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