› added 10 years ago

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TIL that because of a lucky genetic mutation happened in the 18th century, today 38 people in a small town in northern Italy don’t suffer from cholesterol artery-clogging, making them virtually immune to heart disease and strokes. They all smoke, they eat like hell, and they don’t care

Read more articles.latimes.com

via reddit.com

MeEA8 TIL, that the murder of Rebecca Schaeffer. A 21 year old actress who was shot at her front door by an obsessed fan and later died enacted the Nation’s first anti-stalking Law’s in 1990. In 1994, the ‘Driver’s Privacy Protection Act’ made it illegal to release people’s private addresses.
MVrW TIL that a 1992 study of 100 different sites in 22 states showed that when the speed limit was raised the number of accidents decreased by 6.7%. When the speed limits were lowered the number of accidents increased by 5.4%.
m14KO TIL a Polish charity placed a tracker on the back of a white stork to track the birds migratory habits. It travelled to Sudan before the charity lost contact. Somebody found the tracker, removed the sim card and put it in their own phone, where they then racked up $2700 worth of phone calls.
nD69 TIL that the identical triplets Nicole, Erica and Jaclyn Dahm have tiny black dots tattooed onto their bottocks, which their parents used to distinguish them when they were babies.
rd54 TIL the U.S. bombed China’s embassy in Belgrade almost 15 years ago, killing three Chinese journalists. The bombing was blamed on outdated maps, but it was later revealed that the CIA actually possessed up-to-date maps.