› added 1 year ago

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TIL that ITER is the nuclear fusion research project aimed to create energy through a fusion process similar to that of the Sun. Creating an artificial Sun, hoping to generate electricity has already been described as the most expensive science experiment of all time.

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ZWb4 TIL that there is a disease that takes away your ability to sleep. You sink into horrible psychosis and inevitably die over the course of a few months. There is no cure; there are no viable treatments.
vPpx8 TIL that after hurricane Katrina, due to miscalculation, FEMA had 85M pounds of ice at storage facilites around the U.S and melted it two years later after 12.5 million dollars in storage fees.
w9Bo TIL In 2008, a manager at BusinessWeek magazine in New York became trapped in an elevator for 41 hours. The lawsuit ($25 million) he eventually filed against the building’s management company took 4 years to complete during which time he lost his job, his money, his colleagues and his apartment.
5Y76Q TIL that 7-year-old Julie Ann Crumpling was sent to jail in 1870 for ‘stealing’ a pram to play dollies. She was Oxford Jail’s youngest prisoner, sentenced to hard labour for 7 days. The judge wanted to send her away for THREE months.
EglGW TIL the 'personal injury lawsuit' evolved from a rare sight to a common occurrence during the Second Industrial Revolution at the end of the 19th century. In 1870, tort lawsuits made up only 4.2% of the contested caseload of New York City trial courts, but by 1910, that number had increased to 40.9%