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TIL ancient Romans used ammonia from urine to wash togas in a manner simillar to modern day dry cleaning, and the collection of urine was taxed.

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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.
6EP18 TIL that the white area in the center of ice cubes is a buildup of impurities, mostly sediment and trapped air bubbles. Because freezing starts from the outside in, these materials are pushed to the center of the cube while the pure areas remain clear.
b90la TIL that despite being universally considered part of Europe due to cultural and geopolitical reasons, the island of Sicily in Italy is actually part of the African Tectonic Plate.
R58Zl TIL: In 2019, Vice discovered that a growing number of Chinese women were turning to paid virtual boyfriends. The interactions mainly consist of them being hired to sing them to sleep, send them compliments, and chat with them via text or call.
4kAZ6 TIL all Marbled Crayfish are genetically identical, reproducing asexually. It is the only known decapod to do this. They have no known natural population and their origin is unknown, first appearing in German pet stores in 1995