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TIL: The villains in the first Sherlock Holmes (1887) story were a group of Mormons

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QNp5e TIL that we aren't single organisms, but walking ecosystems. For decades, it was believed that bacteria outnumbered human cells 10-to-1. Modern science has corrected this: the ratio is actually about 1.3-to-1. You are roughly 38 trillion bacteria and 30 trillion human cells.
DQv8r TIL a very valuable painting called "Christ Mocked" was found to have been just hanging in an elderly woman's kitchen for years. She had been thinking of throwing it out, but her family called in an appraiser.
Egd6W TIL cicada wings shed water, dirt, and bacteria and are anti-reflective to avoid detection by predators using nanopillars 4000x thinner than human hair and waxy substances
OokW1 TIL "Pulling out all the stops" comes from organ-playing meaning "bring into play every rank of pipes"
mxxLp TIL that Jackie the lion, one of the mascots for MGM, not only survived two train wrecks, an earthquake, a boat sinking, and an explosion at the studio, but also a plane crash that left him stranded in the Arizona wilderness for days