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Do you ever learn a mundane fact that surprises you either because you had never thought about it before, or because it seems like something you should have already known? Often these facts are unsurprising to others, and if you excitedly tell someone what you have just learned you'll be met with "yeah, no poo poo." But your worldview as you knew it has been shattered. You will never be the same. For me, one of these facts was that you don't have muscles in your fingers. What?! But it's true - the muscles that control your fingers are in your palm and forearm.  Another one is that not all languages have words for the "rainbow colors" like we do in English. Some don't have separate words for "blue" and "green," like the Lakota Sioux language. Conversely, Russian has distinct words for "light blue" and "dark blue," but no generic word for just "blue."   What are some random facts that have blown your mind?
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Jan 2, 2021 17:12
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 01:29 |
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The FBI tried to blackmail MLK into committing suicide
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Jan 2, 2021 17:31
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It costs $60k a year to feed a single otter. Please donate to your local aquarium/marine mammal rescue centre.
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Jan 2, 2021 17:35
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Bluejays are one of the few bird species to have the same colourful plumage between males and females. Bluejays, and in fact all blue birds, aren't actually blue! If you take one of their feathers and get it wet, it'll turn brown. Per New Science magazine: quote:Colours in nature normally come from pigments, which absorb most light wavelengths except those they reflect to give the colour we see. But blue pigment is rare. Instead, the blue sported by bluebirds comes from tiny air pockets inside the feathers, which scatter light to create blue. source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26687-light-trickery-makes-bird-feathers-blue-but-not-red
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Jan 2, 2021 17:39
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Sky isn't actually blue, it's just your eyes telling your brain that it is
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Jan 2, 2021 17:56
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I believe a similar phenomenon (light scattering) is what causes blue eyes too. I never thought about whether that also applied to birds though. These are good, keep 'em coming! TeachesOfPeaches fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Jan 2, 2021 |
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Jan 2, 2021 17:57
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haljordan posted:The FBI tried to blackmail MLK into committing suicide Unfortunately this doesn't surprise me. A lot of MLK's writing advocated socialist policies, or at least ones we might consider democratic socialism today. That was something I never learned in school until I took a Civil Rights Movement class in college. I'm not sure if that's why the FBI was blackmailing him, but I would imagine it didn't help 
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Jan 2, 2021 18:04
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The Icelandic language is the closest we have to the Ancient Norse language spoken by Vikings. This is likely because Iceland was so isolated from outside linguistic influences. Iceland uses the Patronymic system for family names (so-and-so's-sen/dottr) and they are one of the last modern countries to do so. They've created a new suffix for non-gender conforming folk to use: -bur, which means "-child of".
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Jan 2, 2021 18:13
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Sisal Two-Step posted:The Icelandic language is the closest we have to the Ancient Norse language spoken by Vikings. This is likely because Iceland was so isolated from outside linguistic influences. The name system is so bad at one thing, identifying who’s actually a close family relative that you might not know of. So much of a problem the government made apps so people could check if it’s ok to gently caress. Imagine banging someone for months, finally bringing them home, and finding out it’s your estranged fathers kid
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Jan 2, 2021 18:28
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Everything has taste but not everything is food
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Jan 2, 2021 18:30
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Are you speaking from personal experience
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Jan 2, 2021 18:32
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indigo is bullshit. roygbv
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Jan 2, 2021 18:34
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Sisal Two-Step posted:Are you speaking from personal experience No because I have it on good authority that 20 blunts has absolutely no taste at all.
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Jan 2, 2021 18:35
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It took us like 1700 years to figure out what the gently caress was up with Roman concrete and we only got a DECENT answer back in 2017, and we still aren't sure how the gently caress to actually utilize it to help ourselves with our modern application of it. See, modern concrete, tough as it is, even if it's re-enforced, wears pretty quickly (in relative terms). ESPECIALLY when exposed to something like sea water. Well, now we've figured out that Roman concrete...well... it...it actually gets STRONGER when you keep it in sea water. Not, like, lasts longer, like, part of the recipe is "Every day it grows stronger living in the sea lol  " And we have no idea how they figured that poo poo out so readily. The stuff is quite literally magic.
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Jan 2, 2021 18:43
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Into The Mild posted:The name system is so bad at one thing, identifying who’s actually a close family relative that you might not know of. So much of a problem the government made apps so people could check if it’s ok to gently caress. I never realized the app was necessary because the name thing was so confusing. I always thought it was because so many people in Iceland were related to each other. This makes a lot more sense tho. Speaking of Scandinavian languages, another random fact is that the Bluetooth logo is two runes put together: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth#Etymology
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Jan 2, 2021 18:45
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I learned the first one when I slit the middle tendon in my hand and had to go to the hospital Six hours later in surgery with only local anesthetic which had worn off(too poor to go to the actual operating theater) the doctor had microsutured the tendon and was playing marionette with my split open hand, testing each tendon in turn while I wept and begged her to stop. anyhoo
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Jan 2, 2021 18:48
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The oldest living organism in the world is called Pando, the Trembling Giant, and it's a forest of approximately 47,000 trees which are all borne of a single root system. The age of the trees (called 'stems') are fairly young at about 130 years or less, but the ancient root system that sustains them is estimated to be 80,000 years old. Although it's hard for us to say for sure, because our dating techniques are too imprecise. Unfortunately, Pando is dying, like everything else wonderful and strange on this planet, because of human intervention. In this case, it's because wolves were hunted and driven from the ecosystem, causing the deer population to explode. The deer graze on Pando's young stems almost as soon as they come out of the ground. Atlas Obscura posted:The quaking aspen is named for its leaves, which stir easily in even a gentle breeze and produce a fluttering sound with only the slightest provocation. The effect of this in Pando–multiplied over the tens of thousands of trees and hundreds of acres–can be unnerving, giving a real sense of life to the ancient, dying, trembling giant.
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Jan 2, 2021 19:06
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TeachesOfPeaches posted:Unfortunately this doesn't surprise me. A lot of MLK's writing advocated socialist policies, or at least ones we might consider democratic socialism today. That was something I never learned in school until I took a Civil Rights Movement class in college. I'm not sure if that's why the FBI was blackmailing him, but I would imagine it didn't help Because he was a man capable of uniting the minority population therefore he had to go.
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Jan 2, 2021 19:08
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The atoms in your gold ring were forged in the heart of an exploding star, billions of years before the Earth existed.
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Jan 2, 2021 19:35
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The "color" brown is just dark orange. Call it what it is, loving dark orange.
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Jan 2, 2021 19:36
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there are more grains of sand in a drop of water than there are bears in the universe
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Jan 2, 2021 19:37
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The dinosaurs lived on the other side of the galaxy.
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Jan 2, 2021 19:52
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Toddler skulls and how unreal they look 
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Jan 2, 2021 19:54
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20 Blunts posted:Everything has taste but not everything is food disagree, nothing I've eaten all week has had any taste weird gonna have to tell my bros about it at the houseparty tonight
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Jan 2, 2021 20:02
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Cloner of the Elks posted:Toddler skulls and how unreal they look Hello, FBI?
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Jan 2, 2021 20:03
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eggyolk posted:The "color" brown is just dark orange. Call it what it is, loving dark orange. I won't 
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Jan 2, 2021 20:04
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We actually never see (except from space looking back) the far side of the moon (the “dark side”  ) because of tidal locking.
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Jan 2, 2021 20:11
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Cloner of the Elks posted:Toddler skulls and how unreal they look Fetal skulls get claimed as alien skulls all the time.
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Jan 2, 2021 20:12
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I'm completely out of AA batteries in the entire house. I need some and usually I'd take some from a remote, or a controller, or some other thing that invariably uses AAs that I have sitting around. Can't find a single one. There's AAA, lots of rechargables and microusb devices. I don't have a AA battery.
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Jan 2, 2021 20:14
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a single potato has all the nutrients you need to live. you could just live on the fuckin highlands. just scarfing nothing but potatoes and water your entire life and be fine, and in fact many people in ages past have done exactly this moreover, a potato itself is a complete root system and you can take just about any normal rear end potato you buy at the store, plant it, and it will grow more potatoes. in fact if you leave a potato alone in a dark place with enough ambient moisture it will happily start sprouting poo poo all over the place
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Jan 2, 2021 20:16
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Tom Gorman posted:Can't find a single one. There's AAA, lots of rechargables and microusb devices. I don't have a AA battery. Some people's minds might be (slightly) blown by the fact that AAAA batteries are a real thing. I once needed to buy some and the guy in the shop insisted they didn't exist and I was thinking of AAA batteries instead.
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Jan 2, 2021 20:21
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For each homeless person in the United States, there are almost sixty empty properties. Even in California there are (as of 2019) ~150k homeless people and 1.2 million empty properties - nine per homeless person, the lowest ratio in the entire country. The existence of homelessness in America is entirely an artificial problem to increase real estate and landlord profits.
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Jan 2, 2021 20:22
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Salacious Spy posted:a single potato has all the nutrients you need to live. you could just live on the fuckin highlands. just scarfing nothing but potatoes and water your entire life and be fine, and in fact many people in ages past have done exactly this Additional fun fact: despite their popular association with Ireland, potatoes are native to the Americas! Additional crops native to the Americas are: yams, peppers, tomatoes, and of course corn.
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Jan 2, 2021 20:38
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If you were a breech baby, you wore your mom as a hat.
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Jan 2, 2021 20:41
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There are only 98 people in the United States named Judy.
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Jan 2, 2021 21:10
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The time in which Cleopatra ruled egypt is nearer to our own than to the time when construction began on the pyramids.
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Jan 2, 2021 21:22
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1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ... = -69/420
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Jan 2, 2021 21:28
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The are only two escalators in the entire state of Wyoming.
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Jan 2, 2021 21:39
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Sisal Two-Step posted:The oldest living organism in the world is called Pando, the Trembling Giant, and it's a forest of approximately 47,000 trees which are all borne of a single root system. The age of the trees (called 'stems') are fairly young at about 130 years or less, but the ancient root system that sustains them is estimated to be 80,000 years old. Although it's hard for us to say for sure, because our dating techniques are too imprecise. Bullshit, that's the name of a Dark Souls DLC boss
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Jan 2, 2021 22:01
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 01:29 |
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I only play Stardew Valley.
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Jan 2, 2021 22:03
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