› added 11 years ago

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TIL that the Soviet scientists who developed the H-bomb were just as afraid of letting their military control the technology as the scientists under Oppenheimer

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a8W8M TIL insurance companies buy insurance for each individual insurance policy. Recursively.
PYEAg TIL that azurite was commonly used as a blue pigment in middle age and Renaissance paintings, but it oxidates at some point and turns into malachite. So the blue parts made from azurite in those paintings are now green.
yrDw TIL in an act of industrial espionage, a Japanese scientist who stole an incomplete capacitor design led to hundreds of millions of dollars in losses for companies like IBM, Dell, Apple, HP and Intel, in a decade long onslaught of faulty electronics known as The Capacitor Plague.
6EjoX TIL that Ben Affleck speaks fluent Spanish
bydp TIL that rice alone provides more than 1/5 of all the calories consumed by humans.