Interesting Things with JC

Interesting Things with JC #1771: "Debut of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" - The original Fresh Prince theme was much longer. In the video for the opening, Will packed and then flew first class, landed in LA and met his ride before there was ever a famous cab. Most of that trip was left on the cutting room floor!

Interesting Things with JC #1770: "When a Parasite Rewires Behavior to Spread Itself" – Infected Texas field crickets were sterile or producing barely moving sperm, but they kept mating, and infected males courted females sooner than healthy males. The virus was disrupting the immune signals that normally slow courtship during illness while still spreading through sexual contact.

Interesting Things with JC #1769: "Football Brain Injury Cover Up" – Dr. Bennet Omalu found CTE in Mike Webster’s brain, and the NFL’s concussion committee challenged the published finding and called for its retraction. More former players were diagnosed after death, and twelve years later researchers found CTE in 110 of 111 donated brains from former NFL players.

Interesting Things with JC #1768: "The Science of Jealousy" – Jealousy can fire before there is proof: attention shifts, suspicion locks in, and the brain starts tracking details and possible rivals. The threat may not be real, but the alarm already is.

Interesting Things with JC #1767: "The Spider-Man of Paris" – A four-year-old boy hangs from a fourth-floor balcony in Paris. Mamoudou Gassama climbs the building with his bare hands and reaches him in about 30 seconds.

Interesting Things with JC #1766: "Autistici/Inventati - The Network Behind the Network" – Autistici/Inventati runs encrypted email, private chats, websites and other infrastructure designed to make users harder to monitor. By 2026, violent radical groups and the PKK were among those using its services, while U.S. authorities say the collective screened applicants and provided access to groups it believed shared its politics.

Interesting Things with JC #1765: "The FBI Surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr." – The FBI wiretapped Martin Luther King Jr. without a criminal charge and failed to establish that he or the SCLC was controlled by communists. The surveillance expanded into hotel microphones and private recordings, and FBI officials began using what they collected in efforts to discredit King and weaken his influence.

Interesting Things with JC #1764: "The Treaty of Paris" – Britain signs the Treaty of Paris recognizing all thirteen American states as “free sovereign and Independent States” and giving up its claim to govern them. The United States controls its own government and territory extending west to the Mississippi, while Britain agrees to withdraw its forces and deal with the new nation as an independent power.

Interesting Things with JC #1763: "Looking for Quantum Gravity with Light" – Scientists are firing lasers through interferometers to detect quantum gravity without reaching the Planck scale. QUEST found nothing, now more sensitive experiments are looking for fluctuations hidden in the light.

Interesting Things with JC #1762: "The Man Who Guarded the Skies During the Cold War" – In 1975, Daniel “Chappie” James Jr. took command of NORAD as its radar and warning systems searched North America’s approaches for Soviet bombers and missiles. Thirty-two years after earning his wings at Tuskegee in a segregated military, he was now responsible for forces guarding the skies over the United States and Canada.