Once regarded by astronomers as a small and relatively insignificant star, the Sun is now known to be brighter than about 85% of the stars in the Milky Way. Contrary to popular belief, it is also white, not yellow, despite being classified as a “yellow” dwarf. Reference
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This Day In History: May 18, 1927 On this day in history, 1927, 55 year old school board treasurer Andrew Kehoe, with his farm in the process of being foreclosed, murdered his wife, burned down his house, then blew up part of the Bath Consolidated School building, which at the time contained around 236 students. He then committing suicide by […]
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J. Doherty asks: How do Honey bees produce a queen bee? I mentioned this in an article on Honey bees a couple years ago in the Bonus Facts, but for those who missed it, Honey bees create a queen bee for a few different reasons, such as the death of the previous queen bee, if the hive gets overpopulated resulting […]
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The following aren’t actually nuts: almonds, Brazil nuts, Cashews, Walnuts, Coconuts, Macadamia nuts, Peanuts, Tom Cruise, and Pistachios, among others. OK, so Tom Cruise is a nut, but in a totally non-botanical way. Reference
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You should know Super Glue adheres more strongly if you add a little water before applying it. Super Glue adheres nearly instantly when it comes in contact with the hydroxyl ions in water. When this happens, the molecules form chains that make a very strong and durable plastic mesh that eventually hardens. Thanks to the fact that an amazing amount […]
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During absence seizures, the person will often appear to be just staring off into space. There is no typical jerking or twitching as is associated with many other types of seizures. Absence seizure victims may also move from one location to another without purpose or thought behind it. If they are speaking when the seizure hits, they may or may […]
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You should know the difference between venom and poison. The difference is in the delivery. Poison must be inhaled, ingested, or delivered via touch, while venom is injected into a wound. This may seem overly pedantic, but it should be noted that venom isn’t usually poisonous (meaning it generally won’t hurt you too much or at all if delivered in […]
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A porcupine’s quills are just extremely enlarged specialized hairs that have unusually (compared to other mammals) thick layers of keratin, which is the main structural component of hair and finger nails, among other things. These thick layers of keratin make porcupine quills extremely rigid and good for poking things. A Cat’s whiskers are also just specialized hairs. With cats, these […]
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You should know looking up at the TV with your head tilted up will cause more eyestrain than if you’re looking straight on at it. Having the TV below your eye level, so your head is tilted down, also produces less eyestrain than if you’re looking up at it. The same type of thing applies for computer monitors, so it’s […]
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Dolphins have no sense of smell due to lacking any olfactory nerve or lobes. Instead, they use their sense of taste much like we use our sense of smell. Dolphins will often taste the water around them for this purpose. Source
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You should know almonds come in two varieties, sweet and bitter, and the latter is highly poisonous when raw. Bitter almonds contain glycoside amygdalin. When eaten, glycoside amygdalin will turn into prussic acid, a.k.a. hydrogen cyanide, which incidentally was the key ingredient to Zyklon B, the pesticide used in the Nazi gas chambers. So if you’re walking out in the […]
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Kirk Douglas was born Issur Danielovitch Demsky. His parent’s original surname was Danielovitch, but they changed it to Demsky when they immigrated to the U.S. in 1912. When Douglas first started acting on Broadway, he went by Isadore Demsky, then changed it completely to Kirk Douglas just before enlisting in the navy during WWII. I couldn’t find any reliable source […]
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This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Crucial.com for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine. You should know how to add RAM to a computer. As a Computer Scientist (Master’s degree and all), I can tell you that in the vast majority of cases, dollar for dollar there is no single thing you can do to […]
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The Ecke family of Encinitas, California once had a virtual monopoly on poinsettia sales starting in the early 20th century due to the fact that they discovered a way to create compact, fuller poinsettias by grafting two varieties of poinsettia together. Other poinsettias sold at the time tended to look more like the weeds they are. In the 1990s, however, […]
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You should know what to do if you see someone having a seizure. Not all seizures result in a person jerking about uncontrollably. With many seizures, the person may simply smack their lips, seem to be oblivious to their surroundings, wander around mindlessly, stare off into space, or the like. In these cases, there is often little to be done. […]
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A Walmart store in Springfield, Missouri sells more Duct tape per person than any other place in the world. Springfield, Missouri is also considered the “Duct tape capital of the world”. Reference
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Petyl asks: Where does the word robot come from? The word robot was coined by artist Josef Čapek, the brother of famed Czechoslovakian author Karel Čapek. Karel Čapek was, among other things, a science fiction author before there was something officially known as science fiction, in subject matter along the same vein as George Orwell. He introduced the word in […]
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Today I found out Ben Franklin’s proposal of something like daylight saving time was written as a joke. In a comedic letter he wrote, An Economical Project (published in 1784), “to the authors of the journal of Paris”, Franklin mentions something like daylight saving time. Although, instead of changing clocks, he suggested ringing church bells and firing cannons, among other things, as […]
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