› added 5 years ago

181

TIL that an Australian bird, called the rainbow lorikeet, routinely gets drunk from spring to summer. The small birds drink the fermented crimson flower nectar from the Weeping Boer-bean tree. When intoxicated these birds make loud drunken noises which many people find bothersome.

Read more nationalgeographic.com.au

via reddit.com

grmOA TIL that DuPont, who makes Teflon products like non-stick cookware, had been dumping toxic waste chemicals from Teflon production in the waters of Parkersburg, West Virginia for decades.
X0Pw6 TIL "red" cones in human eyes have a wavelength absorption peak in the "yellow" part of the spectrum.
VMnv8 TIL that a report from the Institute of Medicine in 2006 found that the sloppy handwriting of doctors kills roughly 7000 people annually - the poor handwriting often results in incorrect prescriptions being given or incorrect dosages being administered.
xxj0 TIL that ‘Mad Men’ understated its depiction of drinking, smoking, and sex in 1960s Manhattan. Advertising veteran Jerry Della Femina said that “Three-martini lunches were the norm … The only thing that saved us was that the clients and agencies that we were going back to drank as much as we did”.
xVOk TIL that Ian Fleming’s last recorded words were an apology to the ambulance drivers for having inconvenienced them, saying “I am sorry to trouble you chaps. I don’t know how you get along so fast with the traffic on the roads these days.”