› added 11 years ago

80

TIL Carl Sagan was one of Bill Nye’s professors at Cornell University.

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LkENp TIL bees can affect the electric charge of a flower, which tells other bees that the flower is currently out of nectar. The hairs on their body can sense the negative electric charge and lets them know they shouldn't waste their time stopping by.
6Epo8 TIL that the world’s smallest wasp is smaller than an amoeba. The wasp, Megaphragma mymaripenne - complete with eyes, brain, wings, muscles, guts and genitals is only about 200 micrometres long. Their average lifespan at adulthood is 5 days and they lay eggs in the eggs of thrips.
GYNZG TIL to cure constipation on their expedition, Lewis & Clark were given packs of "thunderclappers": laxatives made of 60% mercury. Archaeologists can track the route of the expedition by following mercury deposits.
JYMLk TIL nonchalant, disheveled, nonplussed, disconsolate, and nonsensical are examples of unpaired words: words that appear to be formed by a prefix and an existing word, but aren't. Chalant, heveled, plussed, consolate, and sensical are not recognized as English words.
R7kGa TIL One of the methods used for identifying witches in the Salem Witch Trials, was to bake affected girls urine in a cake, feed it to a dog, and the controlling witch would then supposedly cry out in pain.