› added 8 years ago

316

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

Read more sitn.hms.harvard.edu

via ift.tt

ZpYRR TIL based on fossil and biological evidence, most scientists accept that birds are a specialized subgroup of theropod dinosaurs.
Oo10X TIL that preacher Elvy E. Callaway claimed the Garden of Eden was in Bristol, Florida. He reasoned that it is one of only two places in the world where a river "splits into four "(Genesis 2:10). The only other place with this description is a river in Siberia, which is obviously too cold for Eden.
XZNr TIL “Censored Eleven”; 11 cartoons by Looney Toons/Merrie Melodies from the late 1930s-early 1940s that were banned since 1968 for racism. All cartoons in topic. [NSFW]
DJvg TIL that a 2004 phone scam caused a McDonald’s Manager to strip search one of her female employees and force the female employee to perform sexual acts.
kJ6g TIL that when Bill Nye The Science Guy’s father was a POW in Japan during WWII for four years, he made sundials to figure out the latitudinal location of the prison camp.