I Have 7207. Do I hear 9000?

Downward Positive Cloud-to-Ground Lightning Flash Triggers Upward Positive Leaders from Towers

A positive cloud-to-ground lightning flash triggers upward positive lightning leaders to form from three television towers in Rapid City, South Dakota. Filmed at 9,000 images per second, the video shows positive leaders descending from the thunderstorm with one connecting to ground. The resulting return stroke creates a fast electric field change which causes three tall television towers to initiate upward positive lightning leaders. Fast, short duration, bidirectional/bipolar recoil leaders form on positive leader branches that become cutoff from their main channel.

Video I linked to last week was “only” 7207 fps.

Bend it Like … Snell

Optics basics: refraction

In short, refraction is the bending of a ray of light when it passes from one medium to another. Unlike optical phenomena like diffraction and interference, which usually require careful experimental preparation to be observable, refraction is readily seen all around us. If you’ve ever seen a seemingly bent straw in a glass of water, you’ve seen the effect of refraction.

I Didn't Know They Could Do That!

A colleague came into my office yesterday to show me a naughty picture on her phone: food porn. Specifically, it was a chocolate in the shape of Han Solo frozen in carbonite. The image was vaguely familiar — I had linked to Star Wars ice trays recently, but the thought of using them as chocolate molds had not occurred to me. Presumably this is how the Darth Chocolate and Almond Stormtroopers goodies were made.

The Han Solo (and other) molds are also available at Amazon and Think Geek, where they actually note that it can be used for chocolate.

7 Han Solos (6 small and 1 large)
Still only worth one bounty

h/t to SB