› added 6 years ago

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TIL Steve Jobs hired a new CEO for Apple, John Sculley, who fired him later. He started a new company NeXT, which was later acquired by Apple itself, and eventually Jobs became CEO again, driving Apple to its greatest success. He calls being fired "the best thing that ever happened to him".

Y7Drv TIL some plants like kiwifruit, wild taro, pineapples have microscopic sharp crystalline needles called raphides.
Z8GB TIL the loudest events in the universe are starquakes. The largest ever recorded was in 2004, the star Magnatar SGR 1806-20 adjusted itself with the force equal to 22.7 on the Richter scale. It happened 50,000 ly away from Earth, but if it was 10 ly away, it would have caused mass extinction.
J1OPj TIL that Alpha-neurotoxins, found only in the venom of snakes, evolved rapidly and were part of an evolutionary arms race with prey species. Four mammals adapted to resist the venom: mongooses, honey badgers, domestic pigs, and hedgehogs.
mxGBy TIL there's a genre of music called Breakcore that utilizes traditional elements of hardcore, breakbeat, and drum n bass but at insane tempos and in non-traditional song structures and time signatures usually through manipulating samples. Venetian Snares is an example of one such artist.
dYZ8 TIL that during WW2 a “Bat Bomb” was created. As the bomb descended the bats would warm up and awaken from hibernation. At 1,000 ft. altitude, the bomb would open and 1000+ bats, each carrying a tiny time-delayed napalm incendiary device would emerge.