There's lots of science fiction stories about a single molecule being able to "infect" other matter. Ice-nine, grey goop stories, Borg/Cyberman nanoparticles, Strange matter etc...
But this is real, and scary. A particular crystalisation of an HIV drug was able to "infect" labs and production plants, making the drug useless.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PccOwGEbtQU
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@_thegeoff if I remember right, it was one of the orbital drug making experiments recently, the crystals stay more pure, apparently. Something like that
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@wokstation In this case they don't want crystalisation at all, it needs to stay in solution as the crystals aren't water soluble.
Was the orbital stuff down to zero g crystal growth?
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@_thegeoff Varda did it with ritonavir, which is a microcrystal that has this infection phenomenon. Landed at the start of last year. https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/02/vardas-drug-cooking-winnebago-will-be-remembered-as-a-space-pioneer/
Great pic tho:
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@wokstation Yeah, that's the subject of the original video, although all about the original discovery of the issue. Must read up, that looks fascinating :)
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text/gemini
