› added 12 years ago

79

TIL that Roman Emperor Augustus witnessed a man attempt to feed a slave to lampreys as a punishment for breaking a cup. Augustus freed the slave and had the rest of the man’s cups broken.

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R7Gb8 TIL of Mary Carey, a pornographic actress who ran for the Governor of California in 2003 as a publicity stunt. Her platform included promises of taxing breast implants, making lap dances tax-deductible, and creating a "Porn for Pistols" exchange program.
BgXYr TIL Japan has become infested with North American raccoons after an anime based on the book Rascal aired in 1977 and caused thousands of raccoons to be imported as pets only to be released into the wild
0wdAR Possibly. The trees-down (or “arboreal”) hypothesis has been around for many years, says evolutionary biologist Richard O. Prum of Yale University. Researchers guessed that the scales of tree-dwelling Triassic reptiles elongated into feathers, which helped them leap away from predators. Once the proto-birds could glide, they were en route to avian flight. “It was like one big, crazy hairball of ideas all stuck together,” Prum says.
YpBQP TIL that Platypuses don’t have nipples... Despite being mammals and having mammary glands platypuses do not have nipples with which to fed their babies. Instead they release milk through glands like sweat. The milk then gathers in grooves on the mum’s abdomen where the puggles lap it up..
YpR9Z TIL that the Chernobyl disaster could have been 10x worse and could have affected most of Europe if three volunteer divers didn't drain a pool to prevent a second explosion.