› added 6 years ago

153

TIL cities house 62.7% of the US population but occupies only 3.5% of land area

Read more census.gov

via reddit.com

v1P1D TIL that Ivanpah, a solar electric generating system inadvertently created a solar death ray and has killed a lot of birds.
epAY6 TIL that Sugar Ray, who wrote late 90s classics like "Fly" and "Every Morning", started as a nu metal band
78MyP TIL: Apple seeds DO NOT yield the same apple it came from... every apple seed yields a completely unique apple. If you want the exact same apple, you have to cut a branch off the existing apple tree and graft in onto another tree.
4XpWJ TIL that the idea of wooden stakes to kill vampires actually came from the use of wooden stakes to pin the dead down so they couldn’t escape the coffin. A measure taken during the New England vampire panic among other places. Though staked in the chest it had nothing to do with piercing the heart.
mxdEp TIL since Japanese honeybees don't have big enough stingers to pierce giant hornet exoskeletons, they instead attack by swarming them in "hot bee balls" and cooking them to death. The friction of the buzzing bees can reach 117° F / 47° C at the core of the bee ball.