› added 7 years ago

200

TIL that an 18th century Presbyterian minister’s efforts to mathematically prove the existence of God now helps keep spam out of our inboxes

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loby1 TIL Unlike with planets - observing deep sky objects does not necessarily require using high magnifications but aperture is more important. Even a 100000$ telescope won't help in a light polluted city
awdnM TIL Stanley Kubrick wanted to use Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother suite in A Clockwork Orange. Pink Floyd's bassist Roger Waters refused when he found out Kubrick would edit the music to fit the film. Later, Waters asked Kubrick to use sounds from 2001: A Space Odyssey on a record. Kubrick refused.
9wpEQ TIL India faces 50 year cycles of rat floods. The cycle is driven by the flowering cycle of bamboo that produces excesses of seeds that increase the rat population. The last mautam (Melocanna baccifera driven event) occured 2007-8 and the next thingtam (Bambusa tulda driven) is to occur in 2025-6.
NXEOP TIL there are about 20 quadrillion ants on earth. Their total biomass outweighs that of mammals and birds, combined.
R70G1 TIL a psychology professor taught his sheepdog to recognize more than 1000 different toys by name. The dog could even infer names by discerning which toy it did not recognize.