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TIL In addition to the main smelly chemical of skunk spray (thiols), there's also another chemical called thioacetates. These chemicals don't stink, but they absorb into hair and fur, and react violently with water to rapidly produce thiols. This stops animals from removing the smell.

NXPKE TIL some great white sharks that gather seasonally around Mexico’s Guadalupe Island hang out together. They tend to be most social when looking for food — it's basically a way to “eavesdrop” on other sharks and find an easy meal.
AB9g TIL of Chlorine-trifluoride, a substance so unstable it sets seemingly inflammable objects like concrete on fire. In the 1950’s, some was accidentally spilled in a warehouse and burned through a foot of concrete while simultaneously releasing a deadly cloud of gas that corroded anything it touched.
RGY6 TIL Shakespeare’s name is spelt differently in all six of his known signatures, and none of them is spelt ‘William Shakespeare’.
xVMbg TIL to get around a law forbidding state banishment, Georgia judges can ban criminals from 158 of the 159 state counties. They send people to Echols County which is so boring, criminals choose to leave the state rather than live there
Me7Z8 TIL that the World Bank stopped tracking inflation in Zimbabwe in November 2008, when it reached 79.6 billion percent. One year later, the country abandoned its currency. The exchange rate at the time was $35 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars to $1 USD.