the world is awesome

I'm straight-up stealing these links from Uncertain Principles because they're so good:

• Ancient brew masters tapped antibiotic secrets
  
  
  ' A chemical analysis of the bones of ancient Nubians shows that they were regularly consuming tetracycline, most likely in their beer. The finding is the strongest evidence yet that the art of making antibiotics, which officially dates to the discovery of penicillin in 1928, was common practice nearly 2,000 years ago.'
  
  
  (tags: science archaeology chemistry history news medicine)
  
  
• Physics Buzz: How not to: The Fire Tornado
  
  
  'In the last two weeks, both water and fire tornadoes have been widely covered by the media. First there was the dramatic shots from Japan of a so-called 'waterspout,' then there was the unbelievable footage of this fire tornado in Brazil, followed immediately by this one from Hawaii. And as any good physicists would have, we immediately thought 'I want to do that!'

  
  

  Of course, APS requires me to tell you not to try this at home. So, here's how you would do this, if you were to find yourself attempting to do it, which you should absolutely under no circumstances try to do.'