› added 6 years ago

106

TIL Roughly 70 percent of Sicilian businesses pay protection money to the Mafia.

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69o1X TIL: Despite looking like hedgehogs, Lesser tenrecs (Echinops telfairi) are more related to elephants than to hedgehogs (Erinaceus). Their similarities developed through convergent evolution
9YKPB TIL that there is a difference between an acronym and an initialism. An acronym is when the initials of the words form a new word (e.g. NATO = Nayto) and an initialism is when the initials do not make a new word but are instead read out individually (e.g. BBC = B B C)
A5gw TIL that if you hyperventilate before swimming underwater or diving, you artificially reduce the amount of CO2 in your bloodstream, preventing the body’s ‘urge to breathe’ trigger, making you blackout and rapidly drown without warning.
e6Ng TIL Will Ferrell completed the Boston Marathon in 2003 and fulfilled both of his goals: Finish in under 4 hours, and beat the guy dressed as Elvis.
9vnX TIL that a whitewater rafting company trained a flock of carrier pigeons to carry rolls of film containing pictures of the rafters back to the base to be developed and available for purchase by the end of the trip.