› added 5 months ago

30

TIL That Termites Can Produce Hydrogen

Read more academic.oup.com

via reddit.com

R70r1 TIL of "the Truman Show Delusion" a term used in psychology to describe patients who believe they are part of a staged reality. Psychiatrist reported on one patient who had traveled to New York after 9/11 to ensure the event really happened and wasn't just a plot twist in his show.
neE47 TIL that in 2003, Dutchman Kees Moeliker won the Ig Nobel Prize for Biology after writing a paper on "the first case of homosexual necrophilia [by a mallard]" after watching a duck die after crashing into his window, only for its corpse to be "raped almost continually for 75 mins" by another duck.
R5V67 TIL in 1842, PT Barnum, a.k.a The Great Showman, showed off a "Fiji Mermaid". Barnum insisted it was an authentic skeleton from a mermaid, but on his death bed, admitted what folks saw was the skeleton of a monkey torso and fishtail sewed together made by Japanese sailors in 1822
gM5VX TIL Prince’s classic film Purple Rain was remade in the Saharan state of Niger, where there is no word for Purple. The film and song have the name Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai which, translated, means “Rain the Color of a Blue With Red in It.”
5exR TIL in Michael Crichton’s novel “Jurassic Park,” John Hammond states that the pre-recorded park tour is narrated by Richard Kiley, who later played the same role in the film, marking perhaps the first time that a celebrity named as a book character was later cast as him/herself in a film adaptation.