On the Record

“How can we lose... when we have a NASA engineer on our team?”

A contestant on the television show Survivor Panama is despondent after former astronaut Dan Barry fails in a team challenge. Barry was later evicted from the show by his team.

“It was the most rewarding poster I've ever done.”

Geologist Alison Rust muses on her experiments that compared lava flows to fudge.

Sources: CollectSpace.com, New York Times

Scorecard

Genes and architecture

Singapore has hatched a plan to build a major bridge in the shape of the DNA double helix.

Roboshark

US Navy researchers are developing a shark-tracking tag they can implant in the creature's brain, which might someday control its swimming.

Weather forecasting

There is a new kind of betting on the US national collegiate basketball tournament this month. Correctly predicting the weather on competing campuses on the day of a game could net you a week-long tornado chase.

Number Crunch

Ever heard something dodgy on the evening news? A survey of local news broadcasts in 50 US cities backs up the notion that television isn't always a reliable place to get your health and medical advice.

1,799 health stories were broadcast during 2,795 top-rated news shows during October 2002.

33 seconds was the median length of those segments.

27% included an interview with a health professional.

23 reports described how duct tape could be used to remove warts.

Source: Pribble, J. M. et al. Am. J. Manag. Care 12, 170–176 (2006).