Humans are better than dogs at smelling ripe bananas. [reference]
Eucalyptus makes up 75% of Australian forests [reference]
7% of all people who ever existed are currently alive. [reference]
Humans weigh a third of all mammals on Earth — and 60% of all mammals are the ones we eat. [reference]
The Netherlands is the second largest food exporter in the world, despite ranking 130th+ in land area. [reference]
The Latin root of the word ‘salary’ means ‘related to salt’. Some say Roman soldiers were paid with it; others that the money was used to buy it. [reference]
After Nikola Tesla’s death, his personal notes and research were examined and identified as harmless by John G. Trump — Donald Trump’s uncle. [reference]
Edison Studios employees filmed the electrocution of an elephant in 1903 and released as the first death animal film. It is sometimes wrongly said that Edison organised it to discredit the use of AC in the war of currents. [reference]
In 1797 Britain, for nine months, an act of parliament forced clock owners to pay a tax. As a result, most clocks were hidden and people got time at taverns, which were allowed to have free ‘Act of Parliament clocks’. [reference]
Gold is yellow because it is heavy enough that its electrons move at a significant fraction of the speed of light. Via Einstein’s theory of relativity, this shifts the light it absorbs from the ultraviolet (where it would be in a lighter, grey metal) into the blue part of the visible spectrum — leaving the yellow behind. [reference]
A significant fraction of Earth’s water likely formed before the Sun, originating in interstellar space, although not all of it predates the Solar System. [reference]
Neither animal nor fungus, the blob (Physarum polycephalum) can solve shortest-path problems by optimizing nutrient networks. [reference]
A lot of animals have roughly the same number of heartbeats over a lifetime. Of course, many species (including humans and birds) do not follow it. [reference]
One of the earliest British historical heroes is Boudica, a woman who led a major rebellion against Roman rule in the 1st century CE. [reference]
The English title “earl” derives from the Old Norse word jarl, reflecting Scandinavian influence in early medieval England. [reference]
Bluetooth technology is named after Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson, a Viking king who unified Denmark and Norway. [reference]
During the last Ice Age, megafauna included giant ground sloths that lived across the Americas until around 10,000 years ago. [reference]
The US victory against english, french, mexicans was stopped by native americans in Montana.
Dune is the first science-fiction book to make ecology a central theme.
From 1912 to 1948, competitions in literature, music, architecture, painting, sculpture were part of the Olympics, like in Ancient Greece. [reference]
Children outnumbered adults for most of human history. [reference]
For head trauma, Incas would make a hole in the skull to treat it. [reference]
Scotland and England+Wales, used to be parts of different continents. [reference]
There is 3 to 4 billion years before Andromeda hits the Milky Way and makes Milkomeda but we won’t feel it.
John Von Neumann could have been the last polymath. [reference]
New York was created by the English after trading a nutmeg island for New Amsterdam.
Polynesian tribes had a 2000miles canoe trip to Haiti back in the day, just to get plants. [reference]
Toasts taste stronger upside down. [reference]
Dioecious (coming in male and female trees) figs have tiny wasps crawling inside to lay their eggs, accidentally carrying pollen from male to female trees as they do so: a partnership so intertwined that the two species have co-evolved together for around 80 million years, each entirely dependent on the other’s survival.
Pink is by far the oldest colour (pigment found in ancient fossil) because chlorophyll, now green, used to be pink because of the bacteria it was made of. [reference]
Cambridge market used to be the biggest fair of Europe. [reference]