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Perfectly Replicating Coca Cola (It Took Me A Year)

If Coca-Cola patented its recipe, they'd have a monopoly on cola but only for 20 years. So they chose to keep it secret and focus on growing their brand and business, which they've done successfully (AI ads ain't it though).

This YouTuber chemist spent over a year tinkering with chromatography and various additives to reinvent the actual recipe.

Coca-Cola still relies on processed coca leaves, which only one company in the US is authorized to deal with (you can't buy their product). But in the end, he found an alternative.

People couldn't figure out the difference in his tests.

How Did TVs Get So Cheap?

In Back to the Future, Marty blurts out at that his family has two televisions. His uncle then says “You must be rich!” and his grandmother dismisses it altogether.

Now, you can buy a 55-inch LED TV for $200.

How did they become so cheap? This article tries to answer the question.

The Rise and Fall of Sound Money in Ancient Rome

Everyone has an opinion on why did Rome fall. It was barbarians. It was weak Romans who didn't want to fight. It was Christianity that weakened the empire. It was lead.

What many of these people miss is Rome was consistently devaluing its currency for centuries because they were running huge budget deficits. And as soon as the expansion and plundering stopped after Octavian, they just didn't have an alternative.

To give you an idea, in 200BC, a denarius coin was made out of 95% silver. By 275AD, it was just 5%.

The man who saved a billion lives

Norman Borlaug was an agronomist who pioneered semi‑dwarf, rust‑resistant wheat and a faster “shuttle breeding” system. He personally averted famine prevented hundreds of millions from being unborn.

He made wheat shorter and stiffer so it stayed upright under heavy fertilizer and irrigation leading to bigger grain instead of plant height. Prior to this, farmers just couldn't use enough fertilizer because the wheat would fall.

Pentagon bought device through undercover operation some investigators suspect is linked to Havana Syndrome

Havana Syndrome is a term for anomalous health episodes (vertigo, severe headaches, nausea, cognitive issues, tinnitus) reported by U.S. diplomats first in Havana in late 2016 and later worldwide. Some investigations have suggested it could “plausibly” involve pulsed electromagnetic energy from an external source.

It's fascinating what will be declassified about the world of today in 20 or 30 years.