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TIL Dartmouth chemistry professor Karen Wetterhahn spilled 1 or 2 droplets of dimethylmercury on her gloved hand while working in a lab. Less than a year later she was dead from poisoning.

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8e7OP TIL that sperm whales have the longest intestinal tract of any known animal, reaching over 300 meters long in some cases.
N76wP TIL that Heat Lightning isn’t an actual type of lightning. It’s the reflection of lightning on clouds from a thunderstorm so distant (and obscured by hills, mountains, curvature of the Earth, etc.) that we can no longer hear the accompanying sound.
9jLQ TIL Julia “Butterfly” Hill, on December 10, 1997, ascended 180 feet (55 m) up the redwood tree Luna to stave off Pacific Lumber Co. loggers who were clear-cutting. Hill lived on two 6-by-6-foot (1.8 by 1.8 m) platforms for 738 days until a resolution was reached with the logging company.
K8VQ TIL Jodie Foster was born 3 years after her parents divorced… her mother got pregnant when she stopped by her father’s house for child support.
N7AJ8 TIL the "Cardinal King" Henry the Chaste of Portugal never expected the throne, as he was an elderly man vowed to celibacy, doomed without successors. He attempted to resign the clergy to produce an heir, but Spain pressured the pope to deny him. When Henry died, Spain annexed Portugal for 60 years