› added 1 month ago

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TIL there's a "femme fatale" firefly (photuris) that lures in males of other species by mimicking their mating flashes and then eating the poor, unsuspecting fools

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via reddit.com

1EX TIL there is a type of competitive swimming where the athlete has their hands and legs bound, and swims like a dolphin.
xVprw TIL about the Fascinus or "the divine phallus" often depicted as a winged penis that the ancient Romans regarded as a deity and used as a symbol of protection against the evil eye
Z8RrB TIL when in 1988 Consumer Reports compared 4 American midsize cars, all suffered failures during the test - the Ford and Dodge had their A/C not work, the Eagle had a glovebox that did not close and an unopenable fuel filler door, and the Buick had a knocking engine and a broken door lock.
KdMa TIL during the filming of Lord of the Rings, Sean Bean refused a helicopter ride to a set due to a fear of flying and instead hiked up to it in full Boromir armor
b6Ox4 TIL in 2009, Benjamin Moody cracked the signing key to a TI-83+ calculator in 73 days on a 1.9 GHz dual-core processor, allowing users to flash their own OS. In 1999 same algorithm required a Cray supercomputer and 8000 MIPS-years of computing time to factorize a similar 512-bit key.