› added 3 months ago

15

TIL that Operation Denver was an active measure disinformation campaign run by the KGB in the 1980s to plant the idea that the United States had invented HIV/AIDS as part of a biological weapons research project at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

EyvX TIL scientists once tested the intelligence of beavers by playing the sound of running water on dry land. Eventually, the beavers started to cover the tape recorder with mud and branches.
OoA8L TIL - Elephants are one of the few species on Earth with ‘Death Rituals’, whereby the herd will gather around the dead, cover the body and mourn the death. They have also been known to revisit the bones of the dead, sometimes years after the death.
B4vx TIL that during American Civil War some soldier’s wounds glowed blue; soldier’s whose wounds glowed had a better chance of surviving, and so the glow was called “Angel’s Glow”. Now it is known that the luminescence is due to bacteria that produce antibiotics and that live in nematodes
w6W8 TIL that in 1978 a lone pilot flying in Australia reported to air traffic control that he was being accompanied by an aircraft above him. Asked to identify the aircraft, he radioed “It isn’t an aircraft”. His plane disappeared and has never been found.
LaPZ TIL that while preparing for his role as Rust Cohle in ‘True Detective,’ Matthew McConaughey wrote a 450-page deconstruction of his character’s life. It detailed the character at 4 pivotal points in his life and explored the mind of a “deep, wild-ass narco.”