› added 10 years ago

143

TIL All clownfish are born male. They have the ability to switch their sex, but will do so only to become the dominant female of a group.

Read more animals.nationalgeographic.com

via reddit.com

Br9Lb TIL Roughly 100,000,000,000 cells die each day in our body and are replaced by other cells. It's not uncommon for your body to replace an equivalent to its mass each year. The process is called Apoptosis, or "Programmed Cell Death" and plays an important role in preventing cancer.
kOmdE TIL: Brazil forbids anyone to visit the island "Ilha da Queimada Grande" without a special permit. It's crawling with the endangered Golden Lancehead Vipers and its venom is so strong it can melt human flesh. Poachers visit the island because specimens can fetch $10-30K on the black market.
ZpWjY TIL that the phrase “mad as a hatter” comes from 18th- and 19th-century hat makers who suffered mercury poisoning from the chemicals used in felt production, leading to tremors, hallucinations, and erratic behavior.
RYBQ TIL in 2004, Dave Matthews Band dumped 800lbs of human waste from their tour bus onto a group of tourists in Chicago
NlZ1 TIL that when Japan Airlines flight 123 crashed in Japan in 1985 killing over 500 people, a JAL maintenance official negotiating compensation with families killed himself to apologize for the accident.