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TIL the tiny garish Crucifix Toad secretes a glue to catch insect prey that has been found to be the strongest non-toxic adhesive known, works irrespective of temperature or moisture while remaining flexible and porous, and has exciting new applications in medicine, as it is ‘highly biocompatible’.

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via reddit.com

nyw7 TIL the French once used targets with white bullseyes. The French word for “white” is “blanc”, which is similar to the English word “blank”. This is the origin of “point-blank range”, essentially meaning “close enough to point directly at your target”.
R7R9w Let’s say you’re doing 100 mph in a car and suddenly a downed tree, stopped the car, or person appears in the road up ahead and you need to slam on the brakes. How much more dangerous is that situation than when you’re doing 70 mph? Your intuition might tell you that 100 mph is only 30% more than 70 mph. But as this video shows, the important factor in stopping a car (or what happens to the car when it collides with something else) does not speed but energy, which increases at the square of speed. In other words, going from 70 mph to 100 mph more than doubles your energy…and going from 55 to 100 more than triples it.
XEmpP TIL that in 1970, a pilot engaging in mock combat in an F-106 lost control in a dive, ejected, and then the plane righted itself, continued to fly, landed softly in a snowy field, then was later recovered with minimal damage and returned to service.
neAKr TIL: Chickens will sometimes eat their own eggs and have to be actively discouraged from this behaviour, before they acquire a “taste” for them.
b9AD7 TIL that the last person to be executed at the Tower of London was a German man named Josef Jakobs in 1941. He was a spy who was caught after parachuting into England. He was shot by a military firing squad.