› added 3 days ago

1

TIL the call of the common loon — a bird native to the northern USA and Canada — has become a staple sound effect in global pop and EDM music, and is often used to evoke a sense of wilderness.

Read more audubon.org

via reddit.com

nZoP TIL crows in New Caledonia were found to be bending twigs into hooks to extract food hidden in wooden logs. This confirms that wild birds can make tools.
d8gaZ TIL that US pennies were made of steel in 1943 due to a copper shortage during world war 2.
dZWE TIL that the Challenger disaster delayed the Hubble Telescope launch for years, and the Hubble had to be stored in a clean room, powered-on, at the cost of $6,000,000/mo
Bgxve TIL of Miyake events, rare bursts of cosmic radiation that create spikes in C14 detectable in tree rings.
e9mg TIL: In 1976, Eric Clapton made a speech at a concert to vote for Enoch Powell to stop Britain from becoming “a black colony”, to “get the foreigners out, get the wogs out, get the coons out”, and repeatedly shouted “Keep Britain White”. Rock Against Racism was formed, in response.