› added 12 years ago

103

TIL I learned that a “rat king” is a rare phenomenon when a number of rats become intertwined at their tails, which become stuck together with blood, dirt, ice, excrement or simply knotted. The animals reputedly grow together while joined at the tails and spread plague.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

rNymW TIL that classical guitarist legend Andres Segovia gave 5,402 concerts, appearing on stage every year from 1909 to 1987 starting at the age of 16 with his final performance at 94. He toured 60 countries and 723 cities. He produced about 50 long-playing records.
0wD1p TIL: Despite thinking of ourselves as the masters of the planet, the average Hurricane releases energy equivalent of our largest ever nuclear bomb every 60 minutes and produces 5 times the energy the entire human race uses in a year.
yVLPv TIL Babe Ruth became a shirtmaker as a teenager while attending a reformatory/orphanage. Even during his baseball career, he adjusted his own shirt collars, rather than have a tailor do it
m1MMp TIL: the roof on an oil storage tank is not attached to the walls, but floats on the surface of the oil to avoid creating a space for flammable vapors to accumulate and explode.
W7gO8 TIL that Luxembourg is nearly a third more populous during the day than at night, as over 200k people living in Belgium, France and Germany commute daily to Luxembourg for work. In other words, Luxembourg draws roughly 40% of its current workforce from the border areas in Germany, France and Belgium