gnostek1 / 6Plot of shear rate as a function of the shear stress. Dilatants in green.
01A pool of cornstarch-water mix is runnable: fast footsteps keep you on the surface; standing still, you sink.
02BAE Systems developed d3o armour using dilatant polymers that stiffen on impact within milliseconds.
03The same shear-thickening principle appears in Kevlar vests soaked in silica nanoparticle fluid, improving stab resistance by 45%.
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01Soros shorted £10 billion in a single day, forcing Britain to exit the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.
02The UK Treasury spent an estimated $27 billion in reserves trying to defend the pound — and failed within hours.
03Black Wednesday cost British taxpayers roughly £3.4 billion; Soros personally cleared over $1 billion by market close.
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01Investigator Russell Poole named LAPD officer David Mack as a suspect before resigning in protest.
02Biggie's family sued the City of Los Angeles; a $1.1 billion lawsuit ended in mistrial due to withheld evidence.
03The LAPD suppressed evidence from its own internal investigation for years, per court filings.
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01Hobby Lobby paid $3 million in civil fines and forfeited 5,500 artifacts to the U.S. government in 2017.
02The smuggled cuneiform tablets and cylinder seals entered the U.S. labeled as 'tile samples' from Israel.
03The Museum of the Bible, funded largely by the Green family, opened in 2017 just blocks from the U.S. Capitol.
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01Vincent Gigante fired the shot in the elevator lobby of 115 Central Park West.
02Costello survived, refused to name his shooter, and was effectively forced into retirement anyway.
03The note found in his pocket listed casino earnings — evidence used against him in tax court.
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01Lorz rode in a car for miles 11 through 21, then jogged the final five to the finish line.
02Alice Roosevelt, daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, had already placed the winner's laurels on Lorz's head.
03The actual winner, Thomas Hicks, was given strychnine and brandy by his handlers during the race as a stimulant.
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01Caesar's inner wall (contravallation) was 11 miles; his outer wall (circumvallation) was 14 miles — both built in under six weeks.
02The relief army of roughly 250,000 Gauls attacked both walls at once; Caesar personally rode to plug a breach, his red cloak used as a field signal.
03When the relief army failed, Vercingetorix surrendered 80,000 starving survivors — and the 20,000 Mandubii civilians Caesar had refused to feed died in the gap between the walls.
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01To evade censors, the Tractatus was reprinted with false title pages labeling it a work on medicine and surgery.
02It was banned by the Dutch Reformed Church, the Catholic Index, and multiple civil authorities within three years.
03Spinoza never acknowledged authorship publicly; contemporaries confirmed it only from private letters after his death in 1677.
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01Duterte named the victim — Jacqueline Hamill — while joking about her gang rape and murder at a 1989 prison riot.
02He made the joke during a 2016 presidential campaign rally, then won with 39% of the vote.
03Australian officials formally protested; Duterte responded by calling the ambassador a 'son of a whore.'