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TIL there is an animal that looks like a gremlin with a “long, bony, witch-like middle finger” called an Aye Aye. These gentle, harmless animals are killed due to local superstition that aye-ayes are harbingers of death, and if an aye-aye points its middle finger at you, it’s a death sentence.

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JWal TIL Ira Einhorn, the founder of Earth Day murdered and composted his wife, Holly Maddux.
xVmV1 TIL the average wind speed in Denmark is 7.6 metres per second, making it the world’s largest wind turbine exporter.
6Eg9w TIL Nat sec advisor Brzezinski was woken at 3am by a call telling him Russia launched 250 ICBMs at the U. S. Minutes later, he received another call: The early-warning system actually showed 2,000 inbound missiles. As he began to phone the president, he received a third call: It was a false alarm.
wLOAP When 50,000 of Mark Rober's 3 million YouTube subscribers participated in a basic coding challenge, the data all pointed to what Rober has dubbed the Super Mario Effect. The YouTube star and former NASA engineer describes how this data-backed mindset for life gamification has stuck with him along his journey, and how it impacts the ways he helps (or tricks) his viewers into learning science, engineering, and design. Mark Rober has made a career out of engineering, entertainment, and education. After completing degrees in mechanical engineering from Brigham Young University and the University of Southern California, Rober joined NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2004. In his nine years as a NASA engineer, seven of which were on the Mars rover Curiosity team, Rober worked on both the Descent Stage (the jetpack that lowered the Rover to the surface) and some hardware on the Rover top deck for collecting samples. In 2011, Rober’s iPad-based Halloween costume helped launch both his creative costume company, Digital Dudz, and his YouTube channel, which now boasts 3 million subscribers and 400 million views. His videos focus on creative ideas and science- and engineering-based pranks and activities. Rober is a regular guest on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!". Today, he does research and development work for a large technology company in Northern California, where he lives with his wife and son.
7KlX TIL all things observable–the stars, planets and galaxies that can be seen today–make up just 4% of the universe. The other 96% is made of stuff astronomers can’t see, detect or even comprehend.