› added 3 years ago

119

TIL that there are ancient languages that are considered untranslatable or ‘extinct’ because we have no descendant languages to use as a frame of reference for translation. One example is the Etruscan language of Italy that belonged to people who lived in Italy before the Romans.

Read more metmuseum.org

via reddit.com

rNLoo TIL: There exists a protein called "Sonic hedgehog SHH". Mutations in this gene can cause a condition known as "holoprosencephaly", a failure of splitting the two cerebral hemispheres, among other things.
4WrR TIL that a man mistakenly raised ‘puppies’ for two years - before finding out they’re black bears.
6WmY TIL that for April Fools, Taco Bell claimed to have bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the “Taco Liberty Bell”, when the White House Press Secretary was asked about it, he said Ford was buying the Lincoln Memorial. And renaming it the Lincoln Mercury Memorial.“
wLENW TIL a bumblebee generates a positive charge by flapping its wings and transfers some to a flower it lands, making other bumblebees easier to sense that pollen of the flower has recently been removed.
xVdoD TIL of Theodore Hall, among the youngest Manhattan Project scientists. Finished high school at 14, graduated from Harvard at 18, and recruited for the nuclear program at 19. Fifty years later, near death, he admitted to having been a Soviet informant the entire time.