› added 2 months ago

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TIL roly pollies (aka pill bugs or woodlouses) aren't insects but are instead crustaceans. They're closely related to lobsters and crabs, so they have gills that have adapted to extract oxygen from air instead of water.

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j61wR TIL about the Younger Dryas Impact Theory, the idea that 12,800 years ago, the resulting impacts from a comet breaking up over earth's atmosphere would have struck glaciers and ice caps across the globe could have caused the great flood present in many ancient culture's stories/myths
MEnm TIL that in 1881, Navy engineers invented the first ever air conditioner with a lot of ice and a series of fans in order to cool President Garfield’s bedroom during the summer months after he was confined to his bed after being shot.
LkdpP TIL about Queen Soraya of Afghanistan who fought hard to improve the rights of women in the 1920's. She was also the minister of education for Afghanistan and the first Muslim consort to appear in public with her husband. In 1929 her husband was deposed and all their reforms were undone.
v1jDD TIL the bearded vulture is the only known animal whose diet consists almost entirely (70-90%) of bone. It is capable of swallowing a sheep's vertebrae whole. The bird's stomach acid has been estimated to have a pH of 1, so even large bones are digested within 24 hours.
GAMd4 TIL Ke Huy Quan, a prominent child actor who played Short Round in Indiana Jones, left acting in his 20s because he couldn’t find any work as an Asian actor. After a 19 year hiatus, he came back into the industry and won an Oscar for his supporting role in Everything Everywhere All at Once in 2023.