It’s worth being curious about the world because it keeps your mind healthy, and it's a ton of fun on top of that. There’s always something new to learn, and it is a humbling experience to realize just how many things we don’t know. And one of the best places on the internet to face this head-on is the ‘Today I Learned’ group that gets millions of visitors every week.
We have collected our favorite interesting and fresh facts from the TIL community that helped us expand our minds, and we hope that they’ll help you, too. Put on your thinking cap, get your brain ready, and let’s get into it.
#21
TIL aphids are one of the most destructive insect pests in the world largely because they can reproduce asexually via live birth with a one week gestation period and telescopic pregnancies, where nymphs are born pregnant with another embryo.
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28points
#22
TIL there is a town in Australia, where half the population lives in underground homes because surface temperatures regularly hit 113°F (45°C). The golf course has no grass, so players carry a swatch of astro turf to tee off from on each hole.
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27points
#23
TIL in 2023 about 45% of US adults between the ages 18-29 still lived at home with their parents, which is the highest percentage in 80 years.
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27points
#24
TIL Marvin Pipkin, as a new GE recruit, solved the "impossible" task of making an inside-frosted lightbulb—a job handed to new hires as an induction ritual into the challenges of research—since every previous attempt had failed. Nobody had told him it couldn't be done.
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26points
#25
TIL the entire town of Whittier, Alaska (pop. ~270) lives inside a single high-rise building containing a school, police station, post office & grocery store. An empty unit hosts visiting dentists. The town is accessed through a single tunnel, which closes at 10:30pm, locking residents in overnight.
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26points
#26
TIL when the writers were writing scripts for the TV series Community, they often wrote into the end of the scene "And then Donald says something funny" - meaning Donald Glover would just do improv. "Donald's response would be to riff a line funnier than we could have come up with," Dan Harmon said.
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25points
#27
TIL in 1947, scientists dumped crushed dry ice into a hurricane just to "see what would happen." The storm then made a 135-degree turn, strengthened, and struck Georgia—sparking public outrage and threats of lawsuits over the experiment.
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25points
#28
TIL that for the bee sting scene in My Girl (1991), production used thousands of real bees on a 10 year old Macaulay Culkin. To attract them, his hands were coated in a queen bee scent, and when the director yelled "cut," Culkin was told to run into the woods to escape.
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25points
#29
TIL a 9-year-old girl researched the decibel levels of public hand dryers after noticing her ears were ringing after using one. Nearly 4 years later, her research was accepted into the Canadian journal Paediatrics & Child Health, and Dyson planned to have her meet with an acoustic engineer.
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25points
#30
TIL that Frederic Tudor known as the Ice King created the ice trade out of thin air. People ridiculed him for trying to sell winter to the tropics. His most profitable trade was sending ice to India. Packed with dense sawdust a 3 month trip with 180 tons still yielded 100 tons of delivered ice.
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25points
#31
TIL that "Necroprinting" is the practice of building 3D printers using the mouth of a deceased mosquito as a nozzle, producing results that are better than commercially available printers.
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25points
#32
TIL that to avoid an automatic R-rating from the MPAA for its title, the producers of Meet the Fockers needed to find an actual person with the surname "Focker" to prove that it was an actual name and not simply wordplay of the expletive.
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24points
#33
TIL about the "Fever Effect", in which the symptoms of Autism seem to improve whenever an Autistic person develops a fever.
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20points
#34
TIL the U.S. FDA's regulation on sunscreens hasn't been updated since 1999, and only 2 of the 16 ingredients currently being used in U.S. sunscreens are considered safe and effective.
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20points
#35
TIL that there is an active volcano in Antarctica called Mount Erebus that literally spews crystallized gold dust into the air every single day.
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20points
#36
TIL reggae singer Shaggy, known for "Boombastic", developed his signature singing voice as a US Marine by mimicking his drill instructors. He sang his first hit "Oh Carolina" in that voice because he thought it sounded cool, and when it blew up he realized he'd have to sing every song that way.
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19points
#37
TIL after having been missing for 171 years, the lost exploration ship HMS Terror was finally found after Inuit hunter Sammy Kogvik recalled going into Terror bay and seeing what he thought was a mast sticking from the ice. After arriving at Terror Bay, searchers found the wreck in just 2.5 hours.
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17points
#38
TIL it took Germany 92 years to pay off the 269 Billion USD it owed for losing WW1.
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17points
#39
TIL that a single county in Pennsylvania produces 60% of the mushrooms grown in the entire USA. Kennett Square in Chester County is dubbed the Mushroom Capital of the World. They produce white button, portobella, cremini, shiitake and other varieties.
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17points
#40
TIL about the Lavender Scare, a moral panic about homosexual people in the United States government which led to their mass dismissal from government service during the mid-20th century. It contributed to and paralleled McCarthyism and the Second Red Scare.
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17points