› added 12 years ago

96

TIL that beluga whales that suffer the loss of a child will sometimes “adopt” inanimate objects such as plants, rocks, and, in one case, a caribou carcass.

Read more seaworld.org

via reddit.com

epEm6 TIL that in 1567, surgeon Ambroise Pare decided to test whether bezoar stones, which were believed to cure poison, actually worked. He made a deal with a man condemned to death by poison: to give him a bezoar and let him go free if he lived. The man died in agony, proving that bezoars do not work.
rR94W TIL Sioux City's airport code is SUX. When they tried to change it, the FAA offered them GAY as an alternative, which they declined.
dD7eZ TIL about Richard Huckle, described as Britain's most depraved paedophile. He had done his crime for more than a decade and had photographed and recorded his crimes. While he was serving his time, he was brutally tortured and murdered by another inmate who intended to cook and eat him.
X05Z6 TIL in 1954, father of the hydrogen bomb Edward Teller presented Sundial, a conceptual hydrogen bomb with a yield of 10 gigatons. Under the right conditions, this would start fires as far as 250 miles, an area the size of France. Work continued for several years after, with a test planned for 1956.
bjxa TIL at full sprint a cheetah spends more time flying than in contact with the ground