› added 12 years ago

274

TIL The human sigh acts as a physiological reset button

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eK9b TIL that in 1875 a swarm of locusts 1800 miles long and 110 miles wide swarmed through the western U.S., causing $200M in crop damage. At 12.5 trillion insects, it was the largest concentration of animals ever seen. Less than 30 years later the species had vanished, and was declared extinct in 1902.
KNpw TIL That once the Queen is deemed unfit to serve due to old age or disease, worker bees cluster tightly around her body until she dies from overheating, a process known as “cuddle death.”
pYyNZ TIL: That the use of toilet paper started in ancient China around the 2nd century BC. Prior to this, the ancient Romans used a "tersorium", consisting of a sponge on a stick. The stick would be soaked in a water channel in front of a toilet, and then stuck through a hole at the front of the toilet.
Z8mVD TIL about Duck Shit Tea (“Ya Shi Xiang” or “鸭屎香”), a delicious Chinese tea that was apparently given this name by the farmer who discovered it, so as to deter others from stealing the tea plant from him.
E1p9V TIL that the women of Bari tribe of Venezuela believes that a child can have multiple biological fathers. That, a child is not born from the sperm of a single man, but from the accumulation of sperm in a woman's womb.