› added 11 years ago

125

TIL the Austrian village of “Fucking” is particularly popular with British tourists. A local tour guide said: “The Germans all want to see Mozart’s house in Salzburg; the Americans want to see where The Sound of Music was filmed…but for the British, it’s all about Fucking.”

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

JY181 Did you wake up today with a craving for clay, or dirt? That’s called pica, an abnormal craving for substances other than typical food. If you went ahead and acted on your impulse, it's probably a good idea to head over to your doctor’s office. Research indicates that in most cases this craving is a result of a mineral or vitamin deficiency. This brings us to this week’s Today I Learned, as National Geographic Society grantee and ornithologist Luke Powell explains why macaws regularly munch on South American rain forest clay. Yummy! All animals (including humans) need salt to live. Animals that live in the Amazon rain forest face a curious predicament due to the way the Andes mountain range affects weather coming from the Pacific Ocean. This geography results in an extreme lack of salt in the Amazon and, consequentially, some unique behaviors and appetites.EDITOR: Laurence AlexanderSERIES PRODUCER: Chris Mattle
J1PxV TIL that, during an argument over control for the Island of Hísing, two rulers agreed to go to the island & roll dice to decide. They both repeatedly rolled double-sixes. Eventually one of the dice broke in half, showing two of its sides at the same time, allowing one of them to win by rolling a 13.
Exoo TIL Honey, and objects immersed in honey, have been preserved for decades and even centuries
DQv4D TIL the U.S. became a net energy exporter in 2019 for the first time since 1958
0ooR TIL that in 2012 two 18-year-old students discovered that some bacteria can be cultured to target the base chemicals that make up plastics, thus advancing the search for plastics-destroying microbes.