› added 2 years ago

271

TIL that the identity of the Rubicon river crossed by Caesar is still debated

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via reddit.com

e0mD5 TIL that many media outlets downplay reports of suicide to avoid "Suicide contagion," the phenomenon of vulnerable individuals seeing the action normalised and believing that they should be the ones to do it next.
Wk804 TIL Scientists tracking the migration of swifts discovered they can stay airborne for 10 months straight without ever landing. Of those birds that did land, they still spent 99.5% of their ten months in the air.
KYXmB TIL that ulugh beg, the sultan of the timurid empire and grandson of the turco-Mongol conqueror Timur, was an astronomer and mathematician who composed zij-i-sultani of 994 stars, generally considered one of the greatest star catalogues between Ptolemy and Tycho Brahe.
x64kk TIL Stars appear to twinkle because their light passes through our atmosphere and is bent and distorted by varying temperatures and densities of air
6EavQ TIL that cats knead different objects and for different reasons. When it kneads its owner, it's usually to return affection. Female cats might knead to signal that they're ready for mating. Cats in general might also knead to stretch their muscles or even mark their territories.