› added 11 years ago

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TIL A tortoise, Adwaita, lived to 255. To put it into perspective, he was born before the US existed and his death was announced on CNN. (1750-2006)

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Z84aG TIL Astronomers discovered a "zombie" star that went supernova in 1954...then exploded again in 2014. According to the study's lead author, "This supernova breaks everything we thought we knew about how they work."
GAGk4 TIL in 2007 only 700 Florida snail kite birds remained because newly introduced invasive snails were too big to eat. From 2007 to 2017, these birds rapidly evolved 8-12% larger beaks because the smallest birds all starved to death. As of 2022 they have recovered to 3,000 individuals.
JydV TIL the word “avocado” comes from the Nahuatl word āhuacatl meaning “testicle” because of the likeness between the fruit hanging on the tree and the bodypart.
j6VPX TIL Robert Oppenheimer thought highly of physicist Hans Bethe and chose him to head the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos. After the War, Bethe declined to participate in developing thermonuclear weapons as he believed that the world would not be worth preserving after a war with such weapons
kORkm TIL a significant portion of the computer science community once believed Douglas Engelbart was "a crackpot." But, then, on 12/9/1968, he demonstrated to critics and world most all the fundamental elements of modern computing. When finished, they described him as "dealing lightning with both hands."