TIL that the library Biblioteca Joanina in Coimbra, Portugal is home to a swarm of bats that feed on book-eating insects. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that George Steinbrenner on Seinfeld was always voiced by Larry David, even though he was played by different actors. (screenrant.com)
TIL blast fishing is a practice that uses explosives to stun and kill schools of fish. It destroys the surrounding ecosystems such as coral reefs and often injuries fisherman (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL The largest snowflake ever recorded was 15 inches wide (www.guinnessworldrecords.com)
TIL how to fetch communities from other instances so that I can subscribe from my own instance.
mander.xyz is a pretty small instance devoted to science and nature communities. It's relatively tiny compared to lemmy.ml and beehaw.org. In order for a community to appear in the smaller instance's community list it must first be "fetched". To do this, you have to enter the full url for the community you want to fetch into the...
TIL that cochineal extract, also known as carmine or Natural Red 4 is a food dye made from crushed up bugs. (www.livescience.com)
It is used in Tropicana grapefruit juice and Dannin yogurt to name a couple big companies....
TIL there have been no cases of strangers poisoning children's halloween candy in real life. The one time a child did die from poisoned halloween candy, their father was responsible. (en.wikipedia.org)
TIL that the film which helped give rise to the popular misconception, that Lemmings commit mass suicide by jumping off cliffs and into the ocean, was a 1958 nature "documentary" by Walt Disney. (en.m.wikipedia.org)
That the jumping was staged, that I knew already.
TIL of eyestalk ablation where female shrimp eyes are removed to speed up development of mature ovaries. It's used in nearly every commercial shrimp reproduction facility, usually without anesthetic (en.wikipedia.org)
Every Sikh shrine has a religiously sanctioned moral and humanitarian obligation to serve food
Every Sikh shrine has a religiously sanctioned moral and humanitarian obligation to serve and provide hospitality, provisions, nourishments and meals to any man, regardless of race, creed, religious profession, identification, or affiliation. At the Langar (the temple's community run free kitchen), food is served to all visitors...
Fifty percent of Facebook Messenger’s total voice traffic comes from Cambodia. Here’s why (restofworld.org)
TIL there's open and thriving alternative to Apple's M1 chip-building technique. It's also insanely fast and energy efficient. It's RISC-V (youtu.be)
The speed and the efficiency of these chips are just insane:...
Donald Duck's nephews have different names in other countries (9gag.com)
TIL: Elephants have a religion of moon-worship. (lemmy.ml)
In the 18th century they hired "ornamental hermits", they dressed as druids and lived in a garden (www.atlasobscura.com)
TIL upper atmospheric lightning is terrifying looking (discuss.tchncs.de)
en.wikipedia.org/…/Upper-atmospheric_lightning...
