› added 1 year ago

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TIL that the blue-ringed octopus' main venom (tetrodotoxin) is not produced by the animal itself, but is instead produced by bacteria that live in their salivary glands. Mothers will inject neurotoxin into their eggs to enable their babies to produce their own venom.

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KOovR TIL In 2013, while walking their dog in their back yard, a married couple came across several rusty buckets sticking out of their land. The buckets were full of gold coins minted from 1847 to 1894. The total value of all the coins was about $11 million.
5jep TIL that after stepping on her trainer’s head, Mary the Asian elephant (also known as ‘Murderous Mary") was hanged from a crane until death. It was later discovered that she had an infected tooth, and the unqualified trainer had prodded it, which caused her to react.
0wLL1 TIL the term "patch", meaning a software update, originates from the days when computer code was written on physical cards with holes punched in them. If there was a change in the code, you would "patch" that section of the card with a piece of tape, covering it, and if necessary, changing it.
XVbR TIL Meredith Gardner, a codebreaker was able to work out that more than 200 American citizens were Soviet agents between 1930 and 1945. One of the spies was William Weisband, who was one of Gardner colleagues on the project, and had told the Soviets as soon as the code was broken.
Wv79 TIL Steve Buscemi volunteered at his old firehouse the day after the 9/11 attacks, working twelve-hour shifts for a week, and digging through rubble looking for missing firefighters