› added 4 years ago

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TIL: Certain ant species commit suicide to protect their territory. As stinging wasn't effective against some predators, they evolved the ability to self-sacrifice to kill one or more enemies. They wrap themselves around an opponent & explodes, releasing sticky corrosive material killing both.

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EW7P TIL when Nick Drake released his album Pink Moon in 1972 it only sold 2,000 copies. In 2000, 25 years after his death, Volkswagen used the title track for an advertisement and the record sold 5,000 more copies. He was known to have despised commercialism.
e0bRg TIL the fastest land speed record is 1,227.985 km/h (763.03 mph), the fastest manned rocket-powered aircraft was 7,270 km/h (4,520 mph), and water speed record was 275.98 knots (511.11 km/h, 317.59 mph).
d8lxE Today I learned that the dinosaur ancestor of chickens is literally called the "Wonderchicken".
4kaKR TIL the person shouting exclamations in the song “She Blinded Me With Science” was an actual scientist. Magnus Pyke wrote dozens of scientific papers, was a government advisor in the Ministry of Food, and appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire
x7Lk TIL the city with the highest crime rate in the US is East St. Louis, IL; its murder rate is 101 per 100k residents, which is more than double that of the city with the number 2 murder rate, Gary, IN, and also higher than the country of Honduras, whose murder rate is the highest in the world.