› added 6 years ago

69

TIL about a UN weapons inspector (David Kelly) who after declaring that Saddam Hussein had no WMDs (contradicting Britain's motive for involvement in the war) was found dead of an apparent suicide just 2 days later. His postmortem examination was then made classified for 70 years.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

QNJne TIL - The Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus Longaeva) has been deemed the oldest tree in existence, reaching an age of over 5,000 years old. The Bristlecone pines' success in living a long life can be attributed to the harsh conditions it lives in.
JVpl TIL Blue is the most liked colour by far, chosen by almost half of the US and European population as their favourite colour.
Me7AA National Geographic Emerging Explorer Leslie Dewan is helping to revolutionize the nuclear power industry by designing a safer, more efficient alternative to today’s reactors.Conventional nuclear reactors only use about 3 to 4 percent of uranium’s accessible energy. The energy left behind is what makes conventional nuclear waste—radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years—so dangerous. Extracting more of the available energy reduces the radioactive lifetime of the waste. To this end, Dewan is helping to develop techniques that extract 96 percent of the available energy.
logGV TIL that George Pickett, of Pickett’s charge “fame”, had a half a Native American son.
1a7rO TIL that the story of the Dutch "Tulip Mania" is wildly exaggerated, and was propaganda created by religious Calvinists to promote the notion that "wealth is ungodly"