› added 11 years ago

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TIL the US Patent and Trademark Office has the ability to suppress patents that it deems a danger to national security. As of 2012, over 5300 patents have been suppressed and Congress wants to give the USPTO broader powers to limit inventions that could damage the economy.

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via reddit.com

Me9xW TIL the largest flower garden in the world - nearly 18 acres containing more than 250M plants and yielding over 50M flowers - is located in Dubai. The hot desert climate requires the Dubai Miracle Garden to use over 750k liters of water per day sourced from the city's wastewater.
4Xwa TIL a man marooned himself on a remote island and after many years was persuaded to come back to Europe and meet the Pope who granted him one wish which ended up being to go back to the island for the rest of his life
R5P01 TIL that the social media service Blue Sky (founded by Jack Dorsey years ago) currently has Lantian "Jay" Gruber as its CEO, and that by coincidence, the name "Lantian" (given to her by her Chinese mother) means "blue sky" in Mandarin Chinese.
XpO8 TIL: Israel’s history of selling USA’s secrets to China goes back to the 1980’s. China acquired advanced military tech & weapons from Israel then re-exported to Pakistan, Iran, etc. Also, Israeli military companies opened offices in China for sales. CIA said profit was “several billion dollars.”
xykB TIL the ‘Type A and Type B personalities’ were conceived from studies that sought to establish a link between proactive personalities and heart disease. Tobacco companies funded the studies & used them to suggest cigarettes only seemed to cause heart disease because smokers were such high achievers