› added 11 months ago

35

Today I learned that if you collapse an underwater bubble with a sound wave, light is produced, and the mechanism has not been figured out.

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XEdZ6 TIL That there is a distinct variety of mosquito that's evolved to live in the London Underground - unlike its above-ground counterpart, it doesn't hibernate and feeds mostly on human blood, rather than bird
9wD5D TIL that the barber pole became the universal symbol for barbers as it resembles the bloody bandages of “barber-surgeons” of the past, who practiced bloodletting.
PvXE TIL that Niʻihau, the seventh largest Hawaiian Island, is privately owned by two brothers who inherited it, their great great grandmother bought it from the Kingdom of Hawai'i for $10,000 in gold in 1864.
vPZK7 TIL: Maryland was a slave state that sided with the Union, but in 1864, they actually had a referendum to abolish slavery. It narrowly failed - until the absentee ballots from the soldiers at the front came in, at which point it overwhelmingly succeeded.
4NdR TIL That it rains diamonds on gaseous planets like Neptune and Uranus. They contain methane that at high pressures and temperatures, turn into diamonds which then fall to the center of the planet.