› added 6 years ago

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TIL that an estimated one-quarter of all black swans pairings are of two males, and they are known to steal nests from females in order to obtain eggs to hatch.

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via reddit.com

p8NvA TIL about HERA, a telescope searching for the oldest stars in the universe, from a period known as the Cosmic Dark Ages. And it is built from stuff you could buy at any local hardware store. "This is the beauty of low frequency radio astronomy: one doesn’t need custom, expensive hardware."
p88Eb TIL more Africans have access to cell phone service than piped water and electricity.
J1dKB TIL that humans have been wearing clothes for at least 40,000 years. We know this because human body lice can’t survive outside of clothes, and genetic evidence shows that they diverged from head lice 40,000-170,000 years ago.
xD75 TIL: Plants produce capsaicin to discourage rodents from eating the fruit (and grinding the seeds in the process) but birds can’t detect the chemical and don’t destroy the seeds
Ooxa6 TIL that the birth of Jesus Christ is closer in time to the modern day than to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza