› added 1 year ago

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TIL when flies land on your food, they basically spit on it — because they have to release digestive juices to liquefy it into a predigested, slurpable soup they can swallow.

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a88XZ TIL that Volcán Cayambe in Ecuador is the only place on Earth where the equator intersects snow-cover
x6LvB TIL Of the Curse of the Ninth, the superstition that a composer will die before finishing their tenth symphony. Beethoven and Schubert both died after their ninth symphonies. Gustav Mahler attempted to beat the curse with musical structural changes but he also died before finishing his tenth.
X0LA6 TIL that the first 35 NASA space shuttle astronauts were nicknamed TFNG. The official meaning was "Thirty-Five New Guys", but the real meaning was "The Fucking New Guy", military slang for newcomers to a unit.
OLkX TIL Jim Downey, who played the high school principal in Billy Madison, was a longtime writer on SNL. His famous “May God have mercy on your soul” speech at the end of the film was based on a speech Downey used to give to Chris Farley when Farley presented terrible ideas in the SNL writers’ room.
1aggW TIL Lifesavers, and other forms of crystalline sugar - Produce lightning like sparks when chewed vigorously. This effect can be reproduced in any dark environment, and is called Triboluminescence.