› added 11 years ago

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TIL of African spiny mice that can shed up to 60% of the skin on their backs to escape predators. They then regrow hair follicles, skin, sweat glands and fur instead of scar tissue. And it is speculated that we could switch this mechanism on in humans.

p8Pr4 TIL that Olympus Mons, the tallest known volcano in the solar system, has such a gradual slope that someone standing at the base couldn't see the summit because it's beyond the horizon.
m1NAE TIL North Korea is obsessed with Choco Pies from S Korea. There's a black market for them, and factories once used them to pay worker bonuses. In 2014, S Korean activists sent 10K pies to NK with helium balloons. After an injured NK defector crossed the DMZ in 2017, he was given a lifetime supply.
7rljX TIL In April 2011, Jackie Chan said he would donate his entire fortune to charity and that his son would have to make his own way in life. "If he is capable, he can make his own money. If he is not, then he will just be wasting my money," he said.
M7AR0 TIL that every 50 years, the flowering of a species of bamboo in Northeast India and Northwest Myanmar causes a ''flood'' of black rats that feed on the nutritious bamboo seeds and widespread famine. The last bloom was in 2006.
kKJ1 TIL A King in China died because he kept crying wolf. He would light signal flairs for his Army to come help and when they did, he would laugh at them. He did this to make his consort laugh. When he needed help no one showed up.