Caolionn O'Connell spots an article that discusses the physics of superpowers. "Now, I am all for getting the public interested in physics, but is this the way?" she writes. "I thought the fantasy aspect of comics made them appealing for escapism. Why try to root them in reality and tie it to the fundamental principles of physics?"

The downside
Though the public face of physics may be getting a fun new makeover, being a physicist isn't all fun and games. Gordon Watts spends a lot of time evaluating others' propsals for funding and writing his own. "This year I'm a bit more depressed about it than normal: given the current state of science funding we have to write a most excellent proposal in order just to keep our funding level constant."

Tommaso Dorigo laments the constant traveling between his university, his experiment, and meetings around the world. Sometimes it catches up to him. This week, a colleague videotapes him napping during a lecture. "In the video, you see me from a side, lying on a chair, arms crossed, with my head oscillating as my neck muscles continue to relax-stiffen-relax as a response of a continuous struggle to keep awake - a lost one."

Sarah Phillips takes a week of "owl shifts" at Jefferson Lab. The final night, the network connection quits working. "Once this happens," she writes, "the race begins to get rebooted and reconnected before it all does something undesirable without you being able to do anything about it."