Anyone living or working in a war zone should take a moment to reflect on the passing of Lester Shubin, the Justice Department researcher credited with inventing the first effective bulletproof vests.
The Washington Post obit on Shubin includes this interesting detail of the tests to determine if the new Kevlar vests would stop bullets:
"They put their new vest over a gelatin mold to determine how a body might react to the impact of a handgun bullet and then drafted, as test subjects, a series of unfortunate goats..."