› added 7 years ago

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TIL that a strain of cockroaches in Europe has evolved to outsmart the sugar traps used to eradicate them. Scientists found that the mutant cockroaches react to glucose as distastefully bitter–an effective way for natural selection to quickly produce roaches that won't accept poisoned sweet baits

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YppmA TIL Boston City Hall has been described as "one of the world's ugliest buildings".
MeXy7 TIL Tim Roth turned down the role of Severus Snape in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone because of his commitment to Planet of the Apes. Alan Rickman was eventually cast as Snape.
gMXr9 TIL in 1977, the Mego Corporation decided to pass on the license for creating Star Wars action figures, unimpressed with the movie. Kenner/Hasbro subsequently took it, and since then has grossed over 6 billion dollars from the figures alone
OGP57 til E. E. Cummings preferred capitalizing his name. "e. e. cummings" was popularized by his publishers, to reflect his odd style. After his death, one critic claimed the author legally de-capitalized his name, but Cummings' wife said this was an utter lie. Still, the tradition stuck around.
l7GvK TIL that the Sun has a (very hot) "atmosphere" ~5x bigger than the rest of the Sun