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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Komodo dragons, hammerhead sharks, Brahminy blind snakes, water fleas, certain types of bees, scorpions, wasps, and even some types of birds, among others, are capable of reproducing asexually, if necessary. References
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Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) once worked in advertising with his most famous ad campaign being one he created for Standard Oil who owned “Flit”, a popular insecticide of the day. The campaign slogan was “Quick, Henry, the Flit!”, which was more or less the “Got Milk?” or “Where’s the Beef?” of its day. Source
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Mirrors in ancient times were typically just small pools of collected water with the vessel containing the water having a dark color to it. As early as 6000 BC in Turkey people started manufacturing non-water mirrors. These early mirrors were usually made of obsidian, which is a naturally occurring volcanic glass. These pieces of obsidian would be cut appropriately and […]
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Earthworms can consume about 1/2 to 1 times their body weight every day. They also will eat just about any dead organic matter along with processing a variety of garbage and even tiny rocks that have organic matter on them, grinding the rocks into a paste that will enrich the soil. They are quite literally nature’s garbage disposals. Earthworms also […]
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Eric Marlon Bishop, better known as Jamie Foxx, picked this somewhat androgynous name due to the fact that early in his career he noticed that female comedians, also known as comediennes, often got picked to perform over male comedians at comedy clubs. Reference
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Myth: Helicopters will drop like a rock when the engine shuts down. In fact, you have a better chance at surviving in a helicopter when the engine fails than you do in an airplane. Helicopters are designed specifically to allow pilots to have a reasonable chance of landing them safely in the case where the engine stops working during flight, […]
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About 1.7 million tons of almonds are produced every year world-wide with California producing about 80% of the world’s almonds and near 100% of the U.S.’s commercial supply of almonds. Close to one million bee hives, which is about 50% of the U.S.’s total number of bee hives, are used to pollinate California’s almond groves. Source
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In 1830, a French tailor by the name of Barthelemy Thimonnier patented a sewing machine that used the chain stitch; the first such machine to replicate sewing by hand. By 1841, he had a factory with over 80 machines and a contract with the French army for uniforms. However, the factory was destroyed by a riotous group of French tailors […]
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Sharks, stringrays, and chimeara all possess an electroreceptive organ called an ampullae of Lorenzini. This organ gives them the ability to detect even small variations in electric potential. They can use this to detect magnetic fields, among other things. Suddenly sharks with lasers attached to their heads seems even more dangerous. Reference
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Today I found out a ‘jiffy’ is used as an actual unit of time. The word ‘jiffy’ has been around since at least the late 18th century. What it derived from is unknown, but it first popped up as a “thieves slang for ‘lightning’”. Fast forward about a century and a half later and famed Physical Chemist Gilbert Newton Lewis, […]
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