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TIL Samuel Johnson, creator of the first English Dictionary, wrote joke entries including: “Oats: A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland appears to support the people.”

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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.
eeLb TIL lemon extract can contain up to 85% alcohol and can be purchased by anyone of any age in the U.S.
awZ7J TIL that a sperm whale’s clicks are powerful enough to easily blow out a divers eardrums or vibrate a diver to death.
LQ6rr TIL about FADs (fish aggregating devices), which are man-made floats or buoys tethered to the ocean floor. Fish are fascinated with and aggregate in considerable numbers around floating objects which provide a “visual stimulus in an optical void.” 1/3 of global tuna are caught using FADs.
1DZD TIL that prairie dogs have such a complex means of communication that they can embed descriptions of predators within their calls, and even have a specific call to describe a man with a gun.