› added 13 years ago

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TIL that a platypus hunts via electricity and has 80 different kinds of venomous toxins.

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KYOaa TIL Movies made in France can access a tax rebate (worth up to 40% of spend) if the movie passes a Cultural Test, which awards points if at least one main character is "of a nationality that cannot be determined". More points for sets being "symbolic of France".
5VmB8 TIL that the stationary lifestyle of barnacles makes sexual reproduction difficult, as they cannot leave their shells to mate. To compensate, they evolved to have the largest penis to body size ratio of the animal kingdom: up to eight times their body length.
e0jkb TIL that the RUSH song "Red Barchetta" was based on a Sci Fi story of a near future where drivers of large, heavy and very crash worthy modern cars would hunt drivers of older, more fragile conventional cars and crash into them for sport and drive away unscathed.
noxP TIL there is a charity that buys up mortgages that have gone to collection for pennies on the dollar, then frees the homeowners of the debt. They’ve erased more than $14M so far!
4XG8X TIL of Ralph Bunche, a Black American diplomat who: was the first Afr. American in the US to earn a PhD in PoliSci; worked for the OSS in WWII; helped design and create the UN; won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the first Arab-Israeli war; 'invented' peacekeeping; and marched with Dr. King