Peanut butter! Speed weapon! Magic particles! Vacuum light! Extreme weather! Spray skin! Female voles! Squid mystery! And the lightest thing ever invented! It's your Friday Science Watch, where we watch science—to the extreme!

  • Peanut butter: what does it have to do with science? Well, it has to be something, certainly, because it's right here in my notes for this column, which I made this morning, so I'm certain that it relates to a science story somehow, if you'll just allow me to, ah, peruse my source materials for a moment, I'm sure it will turn it up... ah, yes, well I'm fairly certain it must have been this, although it's difficult to say anything for sure, when it comes to science such as this.
  • Imagine: a weapon that can travel five times the speed of sound. Just imagine. And while you imagine, BAM, goodbye motherfucker, U dead.
  • For years I've been doing drugs and saying "I bet some particles really can travel faster than light. Einstein was a pussy." Well, now some researchers have gone and shown it, for the second time. You can send my Nobel Prize to "c/o Roberto, the bodega at the corner of Nassau and Manhattan Ave." Roberto will take it from there.
  • And speaking of light, Swedish physicists have demonstrated the dynamical Casimir effect, by pulling light out of empty space. Yeah, I can turn on the light switch too guys, give me break! Brother!
  • Do you like "extreme weather" like hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and volcanic eruptions? Oh... I... I thought you were going to say "yes." I had this story about how extreme weather is becoming more common thanks to global warming, and everything. Had it all ready to go, and I was going to bring it out and surprise you with it, and say "Surprise!" just to see the smile light up your face, and then I had this cake and everything. Well. Just forget it. No, no... it's fine.
  • "Spray-on skin:" an abomination against god and man alike? Depends.
  • Female bank voles. What's their problem?
  • Looks like one plucky class of biology students has unraveled that big Mexican squid mystery. "Kylie—what's that in the water?" asked one biology class member to the other, as they stood on the boat. "Looks like the solution to that squid mystery—the solution we've been searching for!" exclaimed Kylie. "High five!" said the first student. Then they slapped hands together.
  • Scientists have invented the lightest material in the world: the intellectual heft of the Washington Post editorial page.

[Photo: Mike McCune/ Flickr]