It's really frickin' hot in much of the US. Fortunately, we have central air at home, A/C in the car, and convenient local businesses with air conditioning and free wi-fi. The inadequate HVAC systems in the Science and Engineering building on campus aren't anywhere near being able to cope with this, so I'm working from home or a cafe until the weather breaks.
I will, however, use this as a shameless plug to re-link a post from last year, where we scientifically tested whether it's better to leave your car windows open or closed on a hot day. The answer: if it's a short stop, closing the windows will hold the cold air in, while opening them leads to faster initial heating. For the full-on SCIENCE! you need to click the link, though.
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I got forwarded a physics question last night asking about the connection between wind and temperature, which I'll paraphrase as:
Every once in a while Scienceblogs (through its publisher, Seed Magazine) gets a question from a reader that is circulated to see if one or more of the bloggers wants to take a crack at answering it. Recently a 9 year old wanted to know what is in the air we breathe (chemically speaking).
This is just too much...so I'm taking time out from working on the book to bring you more. I've now seen the Supreme Court transcript and can provide actual passages of what Scalia said.