The Crystal That Could Destroy All Medicine

Sharing Veritasium is a bit of a cheat but this video impressed me too much.

Ritonavir was one of the early drugs for AIDS. But something happened and it’s now impossible to produce the same drug practically anywhere on Earth.

Turns out, any drug’s structure can fail catastrophically without changing its chemical formula but due to a different crystal arrangement.

Seeing in the Dark: Aerial Reconnaissance in WWII

How do you make aerial photos in the dark? With a giant flash, of course.

During WWII, they invented a giant xenon flash, powered by 500-pound capacitor banks. The system’s first major mission flew over France on the night before D-Day.

The Mysterious Case of JetBlue Flight 1230

Two hours into a routine flight from Cancún, a JetBlue Airbus A320 suddenly dropped for roughly five seconds, throwing passengers and a drink cart into the ceiling; 22 people were injured. The plane landed safely, but investigators couldn’t figure out why it happened.

The answer is cosmic rays.

Why Is Everyone Wearing Camouflage?

In the 1980s, two hunters turned camouflage into a regional design language: Mossy Oak copied the specific twigs and leaves of Alabama bottomland, while Realtree imitated Georgia white-oak bark. Their patterns escaped the woods through licensing and resale culture. People are now scouting second-hand stories for vintage hunting camo.

My favorite line from the story is that camo is a leopard’s print for men.

Maps & Travel Routes from Books & Films

This website shows the journeys of fictional characters on a map. Includes around the World in 80 Days, Heart of Darkness, and James Bond’s books.

Great use of vibecoding if you ask me. I’m now doing something similar for Jules Verne’s stories.