Swans on Tea

Cities play hardball to host biodefence lab
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) disregarded the advice of carefully selected experts to put a Flora, Mississippi, site on the shortlist of candidates, the Associated Press said Monday.
[...]
Now, other applicants are crying foul. “It is very suspicious,” said Irwin Goldman, whose Madison, Wisconsin, site failed to make the [...]

Zapperz has a short post on an article that appeared in the NY Times, chumming the waters of fear about radiation from granite countertops. I see that Chad has promised and delivered a bit of a rant, pointing out that popular media could and should do science. The problem is that they don’t [...]

Slow-motion lightning.
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Oh, ratfarts, that’s cool.
(In case of a thunderstorm, stand in the middle of the fairway and hold up a one iron. Not even God can hit a one iron. Lee Trevino)

Michael Phelps has more going for him than immense talent. In Quest for Speed, Olympic Swimmers Use Physics over at Physics Buzz. There’s a brief discussion of the fluid mechanics topics involved in improving swim times, from analysis of swimmers’ motions to the pool design that reduces turbulent water to the new swimsuits.
But [...]