› added 8 months ago

51

TIL that hummingbirds are the only birds capable of flying backwards.

Read more birdsandblooms.com

via reddit.com

awXRJ TIL of the Orangutan Opening, a chess opening so named because the grandmaster Tartakower "consulted" an orangutan at a zoo the day before a tournament game, who "somehow indicated, Tartakower insisted, that he should open with b4".
QNKRM TIL that our galaxy, the Milky Way, is going to collide with the Andromeda galaxy in about 4.5 billion years
Y7B1r TIL That The Clania Crameri bagworm cuts wood to reinforce its cocoon forming its own little log cabin in the process.
yoAV TIL that SNES cartridges sometimes contained a coprocessor to help perform complex calculations that the built-in CPU couldn’t handle, the earliest being the SuperFX inside Star Fox
wAYM TIL that after Edith Thompson’s hanging in 1923 caused a massive vaginal haemorrhage - later speculated to be a foetus - women sentenced to death by hanging were made to wear special canvas knickers to prevent such things occurring again.