Tell us an interesting random fact you stumbled across (Part 1)

Yes, we suspected this indeed.

Can you provide a cite? I don’t even know where to start looking for binding rules on non-zoological nomenclature.

The definitive rules for biological names, from kingdom down to subspecies (and infrasubspecies), are the various codes of nomenclature:

Wikipedia has a good summary on the rules of binomial nomenclature and trinomial nomenclature.

When it’s your time, it’s your time. Back in the day, in the UK, recording a session for the BBC (radio) was one of the ways for a musician to get some attention. It could either be a chance to make yourself known to a wide audience; or it might be to publicize an upcoming album. Elvis Costello, for example, recorded four sessions for John Peel between 1977 and 1980.

In the first half of 1972, David Bowie recorded five (!) sessions for the BBC, on 11 Jan, 18 Jan, 16 May, 22 May and 23 May (source). On 24 June, Starman crept into the Top 50. On 5 July 1972, Bowie recorded a performance of Starman for Top of the Pops (the UK’s leading popular music TV show) which was broadcast the next night (source).

The rest, you might say, is history. Bowie’s next session for the BBC was in 1991.

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ETA - it’s not really relevant to the post, but here is that Top Of The Pops performance

Is the man dead or not? New story as of a few minutes ago:

Wikipedia has today as his date of death. That’s the definitive proof. Any indication he is still alive must be a mistake, once Wikipedia says someone is dead it’s set in stone and recorded for posterity.

Every outlet from Variety to The New York Times is reporting the Killer’s death.

It was reported yesterday by TMZ, but that report was erroneous.

Yeah, I posted about the TMZ report upthread a bit. When I posted the USA Today link, I had only heard that the source was his website; theoretically, some unauthorized person could have put that there.

TIL the drummer on “Monster Mash” also played surf rock.

I was a bit surprised to see the erroneous report above because it was plastered all over Google News this morning. Many different sources ran pre made tributes/obits. As said above, I didn’t even know he was alive. How early did TMZ jump the gun?

A clip of this just turned up in my Facebook feed so I had to look up its origin. Two years ago, a low bridge totaled a bunch of new Ford & Lincoln SUVs being hauled by train.

When the British group “The Zombies” split up in the mid 1960s, a couple of Texans started touring as “The Zombies.” And as you might guess, the original Zombies weren’t too happy with the fake Zombies, so they had to call it off. Two of the members of the fake Zombies were Frank Beard, and Dusty Hill, who would later form ZZ Top.

Actor Dick Gautier, possibly best known as Hymie the robot from “Get Smart” had a son Randy. Son Randy “Rand” Gautier’s claim to infamy was he was the person who stole the Tommy Lee/Pamela Anderson tape.

TIL that there are lakes of liquid sulphur on underwater volcanoes in the Pacific Ocean. The pressure is high enough that the sulphur melts before the surrounding water boils.

And there are fish living in the water just above the surface of the sulphur.

Switzerland and the Vatican are the only countries with square flags. All others (except Nepal) are rectangular.

Swiss banknotes are intended to be viewed in
“portrait” mode, while most (if not all) other countries are in “landscape” mode.

Canada has a vertical $10.

There is now a land border between Canada and Denmark.

Say what?!

A small island sits right on the maritime boundary between Canada and Greenland, which is an autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark. There was a very low-level dispute between the two countries over the island, which involved Canadian or Danish troops occasionally visiting the island, planting a flag and leaving a bottle of booze (and presumably taking the bottle left by the previous visitors).

It was finally concluded by drawing a border roughly down the middle.

Hans Island - Wikipedia

I wonder what the reasoning behind that was. Did they consider such an object cursed and just wanted it out of their lands?

Demosthenes

There is also a fourth tribunal, that at the Prytaneum. Its function is that, if a man is struck by a stone, or a piece of wood or iron, or anything of that sort, falling upon him, and if someone, without knowing who threw it, knows and possesses the implement of homicide, he takes proceedings against these implements in that court. Well, if it is not righteous to deny a trial even to a lifeless and senseless thing, the object of so grave an accusation, assuredly it is impious and outrageous that a man who may possibly be not guilty, and who in any case,—and I will assume him to be guilty,—is a human being endowed by fortune with the same nature as ourselves, should be made an outcast on such a charge without a hearing and without a verdict.

Did they, though, really? I refer you to the learned W. W. Hyde’s The Prosecution of Lifeless Things and Animals in Greek Law, who seems to doubt it. Scroll down to p. 289.

Oh, kinda like the La Brea Tar pits.