› added 13 years ago

198

TIL 80% of shops in Sicily pay protection money to the Mafia.

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via reddit.com

rRQb1 TIL that Gregor Mendel, through his work on pea plants, discovered the fundamental laws of inheritance. He deduced that genes come in pairs and are inherited as distinct units, one from each parent.
eb7k TIL a scientist from Utah used his obituary to confess that not only had he never graduated from college or got a Ph.D, but that he never even learned what Ph.D stood for.
gG0A TIL of British engineer Beatrice Shilling, who designed “Miss Shilling’s Orifice”, a stopper in early Spitfire engines that prevented engines from flooding during barrel rolls (and she raced motorcycles and was altogether pretty bad ass.)
jZ1Q TIL a scorpion’s anus is at the end of its tail, not on its butt
p8QnG TIL that the punishment for patricide in Ancient Rome was: to be beaten with a rod, sewn into a sack with a dog, rooster, viper and a monkey and finally tossed into the sea.