1. an insignificant or trivial fact.
2. something fictitious or unsubstantiated that is presented as fact, devised especially to gain publicity and accepted because of constant repetition.
Consider, "Did you know that squids have eyes as big as bicycle tires?" That's not completely made up (squid do have the largest eyes of any animal) but to make it strictly accurate you'd need to change "squid" to "giant squid", "have" to "can have", and "bicycle tire" to "child's bicycle tire".
The meaning has since mutated, and of course there's no reason we should be constrained to the original.
"Literally" is often used for emphasis, even when something is figuratively but not literally true.
"Enjoin" means both to proscribe and to prescribe.
"Sanction" is similar; it's either a penalty for breaking a rule, or official approval of something.
"Dust" (as a verb) means both to clean dust off of something or to spread dust onto it.
"Fast" means fixed in one place or moving quickly.
"Oversight" means watching over something carefully, but also a mistake caused by a missed detail.
"Cleave" means both to cling/adhere and to split/sever.
"Hold up" can mean support or hinder.
This list can keep going. It's just the point that I got tired of finding more listicles to pull the best bits out of.
Some people object when a word means its opposite, but I could care less.
For example: a humanoid is something resembling a human, but not a human.
So, traditionally, a factoid is something resembling, but not, a fact.
However, it has been misused for so long, it's now considered by many ok to use "factoid" to mean a trivial, related fact.
It's the first definition in the dictionary.
Memphis is built on a thin layer of clay on top of sand. Which is actually great, we have one of the largest freshwater aquifers in the country under us. The only problem, we don't know all the locations that the aquifer gets refilled. :(
Sand provides a huge amount of surface area for colonies of bacteria responsible for converting ammonia into nitrites and nitrites into nitrates, which can then be taken up by plants or algae and converted into other chemicals that are less harmful to aquatic species.
Dredging sand from rivers and beaches is likely going to be seen as a massive ecological disaster in the next couple of decades.