› added 10 years ago

195

TIL that the bacteria responsible for the bubonic plague, ‘Yersinia pestis’, spread to humans through fleas by inhibiting the flea’s blood feeding, causing the flea to regurgitate the infected blood into the host’s wound and go on an infectious biting spree in a futile attempt to feed itself.

Read more nature.com

via reddit.com

ZpJnR TIL that throughout the 1600s, ports on the English Channel and south west of England were at the mercy of North African pirates. Men, women and children were kidnapped to be sold as slaves.
rRye4 TIL Pat Keller was the first person to Kayak off of Linville Falls. One of his professors documented the descent and the photographs ended up in a couple of magazines . . . which were seen by the National Parks Service who fined Pat Keller $5,000.
QW1a TIL that men typically fall in love faster than women and are more likely to be the first to take the lead in saying words of love in the initial stages of a relationship
R59V1 TIL about Terry Davis, a schizophrenic engineer who was"told by God" to create an operating system, resulting in TempleOS. And then there was that incident with alien artifacts on his X-ray.
yPX8 TIL “iOS” is trademarked by Cisco, not Apple