› added 9 years ago

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TIL There was a 20 year patent on mini games during loading screens that recently expired last year. This is why all loading screens aren’t interactive and usually only contain flavour or lore text.

X0PQP Today I learned that epigenetics can be used to predict sex across mammals at close to 100% accuracy. A notable exception are marmosets, and methods that work on other mammals can only predict marmoset sex accurately 66% of the time.
5VPWB TIL that after the Sunshine Skyway Bridge was destroyed in a collision with a freighter, the replacement bridge was designed with protective bumpers to prevent it from happening again. When a ship collided with the new bridge in 1987, the bridge was unaffected but the vessel took on water and sank.
Orva TIL that Claudette Colvin, a 15 year old African American girl, was the unsung hero of the Alabama Bus Boycott and desegregation of public transportation. Before Rosa Parks, Colvin was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white woman, citing that it was her constitutional right.
XoDE TIL in 2007 Richard Hammond abandoned his Porsche 911 after being caught up in traffic chaos caused by the floods to run 16 miles home for his daughter’s fourth birthday.
e0JV4 TIL that putting live birds in a pie was a form of entertainment in the 16th century. An Italian recipe book of 1549 described how to make a pie so that the birds survived and 'flew out' when it was cut open. This practice was also found in 1725 in a cookery book by John Nott.