› added 9 years ago

124

TIL penguins have an specialized organ that filters salt from their bloodstream, allowing them to drink salt water

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ElMp TIL the band Panic! at the Disco started out as a Blink-182 cover band
78oyL TIL that in 2009, hundreds of brightly-colored bird specimens were stolen from the Natural History Museum London. It was later found that a student had sold them online to be used for fly-fishing lures.
jBBN TIL that while the number of Americans who own guns is going down, the number of guns owned is going up. American gun owners comprise 1% of the world’s population, but own as much as one-third of the guns in the world.
8aw9Z TIL the word "scotch" in hopscotch and butterscotch comes from the old French word "escocher", meaning to cut. In hopscotch we hop over "cuts" in the ground (it is an ancient game); butterscotch is a sheet of hard butter candy "scotched" into smaller pieces; it also led to the word "scratch"
R5J56 TIL Jane Goodall observed a 4 year "civil war" among chimpanzees at Gombe Stream National Park. The conflict involved kidnapping, organized violence, and the total annihilation of a breakaway group, shocking Goodall who previously thought chimps were peaceful.