› added 3 years ago

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TIL about Mario Rigby who walked from Cape Town, South Africa, to Cairo, Egypt. It took him 2 years and he walked 7,456 miles. He was greeted with kindness in most villages on his journey and offered free lodging and food.

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xV8Ag TIL noble gases on the periodic table are called "noble" because they don't react or generally interact with other elements, like "noble" aristocracy.
p8Ym8 Imagine you spent your entire childhood, teenage years, and young adulthood stuck inside a small closet. One day, after much of your life, has passed you by, you realize that you can just open up the door, change into some more appropriate clothes, and hit the town! Free at last, what would you do first? Maybe sing a bit? Go on a few dates? By the way, you have two to four weeks to live. Yikes. This is not unlike the situation most cicadas face, as they spend almost their entire lives underground. For example, many of the cicadas emerging in 2016 have been underground for 17 years! To put that in perspective, the last Star Wars movie these insects saw was literally a menace. Imagine waking up in a world without Smash Mouth and Sugar Ray! Come to think of it, things are really looking up since 1999. A cicada’s ear-piercing call is intended to attract a gal pal. Considering that these little creatures’ time above ground is so fleeting, they need to lock down a date as soon as possible. This could be why most cicadas are louder than the average fraternity pledge. Adult males are the ones making such a racket, and some species can register sounds louder 100 decibels when calling for a potential mate. In this week’s Today I Learned, National Geographic Emerging Explorer and filmmaker Sandesh Kadur explains how cicadas sing such a loud song.
WkjmL TIL A woman complained about a long history of seeing people’s faces change into dragon-like faces. Brain scans were normal, but researchers suspected a neurological basis for the woman's complaint. She was put on a dose of anti-dementia drug, which help vanquish the dragons.
8aKYP TIL that Clifford Roberts, co-founder of Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters Golf Tournament, serving as chairmen of the club from 1931 to 1976, committed suicide on the course at age 83.
wolKo TIL that the olympic torch relay was invented by the Nazis at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin as a way for Hitler to spread Nazi influence to other countries. It is a tradition that has taken place at every game since.