› added 5 years ago

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TIL about Ensign Wasp. This small insect, occasionally found inside our houses, is actually beneficial to our homes because it feeds on cockroach eggs, thus controlling cockroach infestations :)

Read more citybugs.tamu.edu

via reddit.com

0wnMA TIL that in 1955 (at the height of the cold war), the Soviet weight lifting champion matched the Olympic record of the time with a 330.3 lb press, only to be beaten in the same competition by Paul Anderson with his 402.41 lb and 402.5 lb press. Earning respect from both USA and Soviet Union.
wL5lP TIL Alexander the Great visited the philosopher Diogenes before he went on his campaign that would make him 'Great'. Alexander wanted to fulfill a wish for Diogenes and asked him what he desired. Diogenes replied "Stand out of my light."
W7ZyX TIL I learned that in 2007 an initiative called the Great Green Wall was started to restore the vegetation of the Sahel and to stop the expansion of the Sahara. The project is funded by the world bank(most of it). The wall goes across the entire part of Africa from Senegal to Ethiopia
JbQk TIL Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ was painted while he was in a mental institution in 1889. Not only that, his painting perfectly captured the scientific phenomenon known as “turbulence” To mathematical precision despite it not being explained via physics in the 1940’s.
ANG67 TIL that a “Jiffy” is a real unit of time. Defined by Gilbert Lewis in 1926 as the time it takes light to travel 1cm (~33.3564 picoseconds), it has since been redefined in astrophysics & quantum physics by Edward Harrison as the time it takes for light to travel 1 fermi (or, 10^-15m: ~3×10^-24sec):