Today I Learned:
1) Ferdinand Magellan was not the first man to circumnavigate the Earth. In fact, he died along the way fighting natives to prove the value of Christianity to a local king he had just converted.... Anyway, today I learned that the first man to circumnavigate the Earth was probably one of Magellan's slaves. After three months sailing the Pacific ocean, the crew knew they were getting close to the East because this particular slave started to be able to understand the locals they were encountering. Turns out he'd been born somewhere out in the East, and was returning to somewhere near his homeland.
2) There is a species of octopus which builds underground burrows in the sand. It liquefies the sand with a spray of water, forces itself in, shoves the sand away from itself until it's got a nice burrow with a ventilation shaft, then spreads mucus on the interior to keep its shape intact.
More here: http://ift.tt/1R7PcZA Props to New Scientist for actually including a link to the relevant journal article -- this is surprisingly uncommon in popular science articles, much to my infuration.
3) Most brain surgery is done with the patient awake and conscious. Local anesthetics keep the skull-being-opened part from hurting, and poking around in the brain doesn't hurt anyway, so it's supposedly not *that* unpleasant. It's also very helpful to the surgeons to be able to ask how the patient is doing, and for the patient to be able to tell the surgeons if anything seems wrong.
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