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FotD Digest AE: the Clovis culture (#1851) of Palaeoindian America was a big deal - identified by these points (speartips) (#1852) that were found all over the continent in a short period of time. Clovis points have a fragile fluted base (#1856) which is very difficult to pull off (#1857), yet almost ubiquitous, even in methodology (#1862). and it's not certain why they did this: maybe Just Cos (#1860) or for shock absorption, as a crumple zone (#1861). after all, they were probably multi-tools (#1858). i just think it's so cool how you can track cultures through tiny details in their inventions found millennia later (#1859) (#1853).

that's it for thus, uh, series-thing! sorry it actually ended like a week ago i'm just a bit haphazard atm. ig this whole digest thingybob is great because nobody notices when i get behind :) and also i can do the facts en-bulk and schedule them so feels a lot easier to hyperfixate hahaha

also - you can find the sources i used for my facts (woah!) over [here]. this was quite an academic one so pretty easy to compile my sources, almost all of them books or articles. no idea if i'll keep this up lol i wouldn't get your hopes up

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The World's tiniest McDonald's is in Sweden but it's only for bees - it’s called the McHive. #FACT

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#1829: the last glacial maximum, when much of the world was frozen and thus lots of the water was frozen in ice sheets, was about 22 thousand years ago. the ice extended from the top of Greenland to what is now the continental US - the Great Lakes were thought to be formed by the retreat of the Wisconsin glacier about 10-12kyBP. the sheet covering North America in up to 3.2km of ice is called the Laurentide ice sheet, which was so massive (its area is measured in MILLIONS of square miles) that it pretty much dictated the global climate.

since the last glacial maximum, the global sea level has risen drastically. i've seen quite different numbers for exactly how much, but roughly 110-130m in that 22 thousand years. even in the last 5ky there's been a reasonably large rise of about 5m. this has wildly changed the coastline - i was aware of Doggerland, the big bit of land between what's now England, France and Germany that disappeared about 10-8kyBP, but now i'm reading about it in the context of the Floridan peninsula, which has more than halved in area since the last glacial maximum.

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E for Eruption

(background reading: fotd#1309,1336)

#1676: after the eruption of Ksudach volcano, Kamchatka, in 1907, much of the surroundings were caked in "air-fall" pumice. some areas up to several metres deep had all life and water completely wiped, whereas some were just a few cm deep. this made it a perfect case study in succession (ecology, not the tv show). with a metre of pumice, lichen came back first, forming a "desert", followed by "pioneer herbs". in 10-30cm deep pumice, secondary succession was most prominent, whereas primary succession was moreso in 70-100cm. which makes sense. in the sweet inbetween spot is a "complex mosaic" of all sorts of plants coming back and coming for the first time. a 1994 study on this eruption recreated detailed maps of the area before and shortly after the 1907 eruption. they're ugly and old so i won't bother embedding, but they're fascinating to compare. there are a lot more different types of land many years after the eruption compared to before, even if each individual type is much less diverse. of course the lakes and rivers were filled in but then they found their way back very quickly to exactly the same size and shape, just in slightly different places. it's absolutely fascinating. the same study estimates that it'll take 2000 years for the area to "recover" completely to a climax community.

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A for Ants

#1650: the ant Temnothorax albipennis sometimes needs to move its nest, and they use a magnificent process to choose a new site. they send out scouts who find possible sites, usually crevices. then they use tandem running to bring more ants to the new nest site, except they wait a little bit each time. the wait time is inversely proportional to how good the new nest site is - so if the new site is perfect they'll recruit ants immediately and if it's only just passable then they'll wait a while. ofc it also takes time to travel so further-away nests are also less favourable, which makes sense. eventually one of the nests will reach a critical threshold (measured by how often ants interact with one another) and when this happens, that means a high enough proportion of the colony has favoured a certain site, and the new nest has been chosen. it's insanely clever and efficient and gets the best result, yet no single ant orchestrates it. honey bees use similar processes i think, except with more waggling

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R for Really fast wind

#1583: the Fujita scale for assessing the intensity of a tornado was invented in 1971, but it wasn't really properly grounded in physics - all the numbers were more or less wild guesses, and you based on consensus. they upgraded the system to the Enhanced Fujita scale, which runs very similarly, but more standardised: there are a list of 26-odd "Damage Indicators" (Canada uses 31) which are basically types of structures (bungalow, shed, fence, stuff like that) and the windspeeds at which they fall over. the main difference between the two scales is that now all these structures are standardised: a wooden fence is made of panels with posts sunk into concrete post holes in the ground, for example. measuring the amount of roof lost on a heritage churche, for example, will point towards particular wind speeds to help categorise a tornado. the first tornado to get an EF5 on the new system was the Greensburg tornado in 2007.

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R for Raven

#1582: why is a raven like a writing desk? that's what the Mad Hatter riddles. so many people wondered what the answer was, but there simply was none. so Lewis Carroll dreamed up quite a good answer and put it alongside an exasperated note in a later edition of the book: "it can never put the wrong end in front!" but that didn't help the situation because... i still don't get it. what had happened was he'd written "nevar", which is "raven" backwards (wrong end in front) but the publishers had corrected it as if it'd been a typo! nobody discovered the error until years later, leaving other people to create their own answers, better in any case:

Because the notes for which they are noted are not noted for being musical notes. (Sam Loyd, 1914)

Because there is a B in both and an N in neither. (Aldous Huxley, 1928)

Because it slopes with a flap. (Cyril Pearson, undated)

Alice in Wonderland was written with a target audience of three people, the Liddells, and there whole book is filled with easter eggs and in-jokes that only these three children in specific were expected to understand. perhaps this one is similar.

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D for Dickin Doves

#1488: the Dickin Medal, instituted by Maria Dickin, an animal welfare pioneer, honours animals for displaying valour in battle, as an equivalent of the Victoria Cross. it's been given to 54 different animals, over 32 of which were pigeons, i guess making them the bravest animal. to be honest i'm not sure whether they had much of a say in the matter. the other recipients are mostly dogs, but there were also five horses (one of which was called Sergeant Reckless who served in the Korean War and ate $30 of poker chips) and a cat (called Simon, who "disposed of many rats despite shrapnel injuries" and ultimately died of an infection. after killing a "particularly viscious rat known as Mao Tse-Tung" he was promoted to Able Seacat, and received so much fan mail that a Lieutenant was designated his secretary.)