› added 3 months ago

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TIL about Batesian mimicry: a non-poisonous butterfly mimics the bright colors of poisonous ones. Predators avoiding the poisonous colors prey on dark-colored butterflies, favoring the survival of mimics. This increases the frequency of alleles for mimicry in the non-poisonous population.

Read more uchicagomedicine.org

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J1y7j TIL that Violet Jessop is called “Queen of sinking ships” and “Miss Unsinkable" as she survived three shipwrecks: RMS Olympic in 1911, RMS Titanic in 1912, HMHS Britannic in 1916 .
b9LLN TIL Roman Catholics in Bavaria founded a secret society in 1740 called the Order of the Pug. New members had to wear dog collars and scratch at the door to get in.
A9Xa TIL in 2005, a woman performing her first solo skydive jump survived a parachute malfunction which caused her to slam face first into a parking lot at 50 MPH. During surgery doctors discovered she was pregnant. She made a full recovery and the baby was fine.
4XKbw TIL That after a two-year impasse with no new Pope, the Cardinals elected a hermit monk who sent them an angry letter, threatening them with divine judgement. He became Celestine V. He served for five months before implementing a law that allowed Popes to abdicate. He abdicated a week later.
1OrD TIL that Vasily Zaytsev, a Soviet sniper with over 242 confirmed kills and 500 rumoured kills, became so good at shooting due to his peasant childhood; his family was too poor to afford many bullets, and hence he was forced to learn to take one shot per animal.