› added 1 year ago

181

TIL Black Widow Spiders play dead

Read more oaklandzoo.org

via reddit.com

D1ogY TIL of a bacterium that does photosynthesis without sunlight. Instead it uses thermal "black-body" radiation. It was discovered in 2005 on a deep-sea hydrothermal vent, at a depth of 2400 m, in complete darkness.
yQXw8 TIL Alexander Mackenzie was the first European to cross North America (north of Mexico)
E1NBW TIL between 1990 and 1997 the Hubble Space Telescope assigned several hours per year to projects proposed by amateur astronomers, some of which led to publishable discoveries, but these policy was discontinued due to budget reductions.
DQwaJ TIL modern tests for high value old paintings search for carbon 14 isotopes, none of which existed in the world before the trinity nuclear tests of the 40’s. Any paintings containing this isotope are clearly from after the tests and thus, a forgery.
1aPkd TIL: Archaeologist Alexander Peev was executed by firing squad in 1943 on suspicion of sending a coded message to the Soviet Union. It was actually an ancient inscription he wanted Russian archaeologists to help him interpret. The text remains undeciphered.