Here are the Twitter weird science facts for the week!

298. Jan 05: China’s treacherous Yellow River: est. 1.5k floods (millions killed) & 26 course changes in 2.6k years.  The Yellow River is especially dangerous because of the high proportion of silt in it, which continuously raises the level of the river bed.  Historically, levees were built to accommodate the raising river, and the breaking of these levees has lead to the catastrophic flooding and course changes.  In 1938, in the second Sino-Japanese war, Chinese soldiers broke the levees to hinder the progress of the advancing Japanese; the flooding is estimated to have killed over a half million people.

299. Jan 06: The vampire finch? A finch is an unlikely blood sucker, but a certain species has developed the habit of opportunistically feeding on the blood of other birds.

300. Jan 07: 34,000-year-old bacteria found alive!  (h/t @AndreaMustain, @BoraZ)

301. Jan 08: The Theremin, hands-free electronic instrument invented in 1928 (h/t Big Bang Theory!)

302. Jan 09: The infamy of the Tacoma Narrows bridge followed one engineer even as a Japanese POW.  (h/t @blakestacey)

303. Jan 10: In 1669 Hennig Brand discovered phosphorous while boiling urine to search for Philosopher’s Stone.

304. Jan 11: Thunderstorms hurl antimatter into space!