TIL that in 1572, Tycho Brahe spotted a "new star" that briefly outshone Venus and was seen in daylight. This supernova was exploding around 9,000 light-years away, 300 million times brighter than the Sun, and visible naked-eye for 16 months. It shattered medieval ideas that the stars never change.
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Trump tries to have it both ways on COVID vaccines
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TeleMessage, a modified Signal clone used by US government officials, has been hacked
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Pete Hegseth’s Signal Phone Number Can Be Found Everywhere
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TIL that Erector Set inventor Alfred Carlton Gilbert also designed a toy lab set using radioactive material that was sold in 1950. The toy's amount of radiation exposure was equivalent to a day's UV exposure from the sun, provided that the radioactive samples were not removed from their containers.
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TIL that "Edmond de Belamy," a portrait generated by AI, sold for $432,500 in 2018. It was created using an algorithm trained on 15,000 portraits from the 14th to 19th centuries, and the "artist" signed it with a mathematical formula.
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How the U.S. is confronting the threat posed by drones swarming sensitive national security sites
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Finally! Kindle Double Point Day March 17, 2025
An unofficial sub for everything related to Amazon Kindle.
Upside-Down US Flag Meaning: 'Distress' Signal Seen Flying Across the US
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DOGE touts billions in canceled government contracts. Where are its numbers coming from?
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Trump, DOGE work to shutter CFPB, an agency created in response to the 2008 financial crisis
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Knowledge is Power—Why Would the Government Want to Dismantle Education?
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The Death of Competition in American Elections
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Elon Musk’s DOGE team may need a crash course in COBOL
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These prosecutors just created the blueprint for standing up to Trump
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TIL about the "cocktail party effect"—our brain's ability to focus on one conversation in a noisy room. This ability lets us tune into specific voices while filtering out background chatter, and even pick up important words like our name even when we are not paying attention.
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'A six resignation kind of day' at DOJ following Trump's sketchy deal with NYC mayor Eric Adams
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'A Complete Takeover': New Trump Order Entrenches Musk-Led 'Shadow Government'
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TIL that "tit for tat" is not just a saying, but also a highly effective strategy in conflict resolution, which involves being nice, forgiving, provocable, and clear. It won two "prisoner's dilemma" tournaments by simply cooperating first, then subsequently mirroring their opponent's previous move.
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'No One Is Above the Law': Judge Blocks Musk Wrecking Crew From Treasury Payment System
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Elon Musk's Net Worth Has Dropped Since Donald Trump Took Office
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‘Institutional knowledge walking out the door’: Buyouts for intel workers ‘dangerous’
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Trump wants to undo diversity programs. Some agencies react by scrubbing US history and culture
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TIL about Black Sunday, April 14, 1935, when a massive dust storm hundreds of miles wide and thousands of feet high tore through Oklahoma and Texas. Temperatures dropped 30+ degrees in 2 hours as the storm turned day into night, plunging the Southern Plains into total darkness.
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Kennedy Tries to Distance Himself From Past Vaccine Skepticism
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