› added 12 years ago

71

TIL Bats represent 20% of all mammals

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0dWAy TIL King John I of France had the shortest reign in French History. His father died 4 months before John’s birth and John became king on the day of his birth in 1316. Sadly he died 5 days later. There are rumors that he was murdered.
p8d8A TIL that Turkey Vultures have been & sometimes are still used to detect natural gas leaks from pipelines; the odor that gas companies add to gas (so we can detect it since it's odorless) is the same as rotting flesh, which leads the vultures to congregate in the sky in the area of the leak.
wAno TIL that Dr. Donald Unger won an Ig Nobel Award in medicine after systematically cracking the knuckles on his left hand and not his right hand for 60 years, demonstrating that knuckle cracking does not cause arthritis.
k4Z1 TIL that between 1960 and 1977, the secret number authorizing US presidents to launch nuclear missiles was 00000000.
neAKr TIL: Chickens will sometimes eat their own eggs and have to be actively discouraged from this behaviour, before they acquire a “taste” for them.