Links for 2012-04-21

Both claims that I'm about to describe use novel techniques, and their analyses have not been repeated by anyone else. At this point you should understand that both are tentative, and (based on the history of radical claims) the odds are against them. Both might be wrong. That said, both analyses look to me as though they've been reasonably well done, and if a mistake has been made, it will require someone far more expert in dark matter studies than I am to point it out. So let me describe them in turn, to the best of my ability.

If you can't get enough articles about the physics of running, Physics Buzz has you covered...

The story of the guy that used physics to fight a traffic ticket is super popular right now. I am not a big fan of reporting news - it's just not what I do. Instead, let me see what I can do with this problem. First, what is the deal? Basically, the guy (Dmitri Krioukov) was issued a traffic ticket for failing to stop at a stop sign. His defense was that he stopped with a high acceleration AND the view of his stop was partially blocked another car. On top of this, he claimed the the law enforcement officer was looking at his angular speed and not his actual speed. Since the apparent angular speed depends on the distance to the observer, as he approached the stop sign a slowing down car doesn't look that much different from a constant speed car.