Free Republic

President Obama and Discovery Channel announced today that the chief executive will appear on the Dec. 8 episode of Mythbusters. And surprisingly, the myth being busted has nothing to do with either Islam or Kenyan birth certificates. On the episode, Obama will ask Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman to test whether it was possible for the Greek scientist Archimedes, as told in story, to have set fire to an invading fleet using a giant mirror and the reflected rays of the sun. Which forces me to ask: What the hell is the government secretly planning to do with a giant...

For a president under siege, maybe this could help. In an episode of “Mythbusters” on the Discovery Channel to be shown on Dec. 8, President Obama will help determine whether the Greek scientist Archimedes really set fire to an invading Roman fleet using only mirrors and the reflected rays of the sun. Legend has it that during the Siege of Syracuse, circa 214 B.C., Archimedes destroyed the enemy ships with fire, the result of a “heat ray” involving a series of mirrors set up on the coast. But the question has long remained: Did it really happen that way? “Mythbusters”...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama will appear on an episode of "Mythbusters," a television show that uses science to determine the truth behind urban legends. The White House says the episode will air Dec. 8 on the Discovery Channel. Discovery says the episode considers this question: Did Greek scientist Archimedes set fire to an invading Roman fleet using only mirrors and the reflected rays of the sun?

Mythbusters guys not allowed to demonstrate what the RFID chips are doing.

This is a 5-minute video of MythBusters learning, and demonstrating, the Japanese art of "dorodungo" -- how to take real animal poo, and with a lot of work, make a high-gloss ball a few inches in diameter. In other words, they show how to "polish a turd". The political implications of this process, especially with regard to how the media spin-meisters treat recent administration screw-ups and related events, were inescapable...

Mythbusters 'Big Bang' Shatters Windows Residents Rocked In Yolo County POSTED: 11:39 pm PDT March 25, 2009 UPDATED: 12:39 pm PDT March 26, 2009 YOLO COUNTY, Calif. -- A big explosion, in the name of science, scared a lot of people in a small town. Mythbusters went to Yolo County and ended up with a bigger bang than expected.

YOLO COUNTY, Calif. -- A big explosion, in the name of science, scared a lot of people in a small California town. It all began with a test from by the crew of the TV show Mythbusters, but their test produced a bigger bank than they expected. "It was a boom that was just -- I had never heard anything like that before, it was really wired," Sherril Stephens told TV station KCRA. The explosion was so big, Stephens said it knocked her off the couch and broke her front window. Nearly the entire town of Esparto, Calif., poured into...

Credit card companies successfully nixed a Mythbusters segment exposing RFID's security flaws, according to Arbiter of Truth and Mythbusters co-host, Adam Savage. Texas Instruments comes on along with chief legal counsel for American Express, Visa, Discover, and everybody else... They were way, way outgunned and they absolutely made it really clear to Discovery that they were not going to air this episode talking about how hackable this stuff was, and Discovery backed way down being a large corporation that depends upon the revenue of the advertisers. Now it's on Discovery's radar and they won't let us go near it.

A tourist who relieved himself over a live railway line at a south London station was electrocuted.

I love "Mythbusters." It's fun, charming, full of personality, very scientific, and a great way to learn about science. So now the Discovery Channel has made a new show called "Smash Lab." It's an obvious attempt at ripping off Mythbusters. However, it fails in every way possible. The characters have no personality. The show has no sense of fun, wonder, or amazement. It's absolutely horrible, in every way imaginable.

Hey, I got a question for all the firearm experts/enthusiasts on Free Republic. Speaking to my grandson recently - he is 16 - he told me a episode of Mythbusters where the look at the 'myth' shown in movies when a person gets shot they get blown back. The Mythbuster people concluded it was false by shooting a dead pig and a dummy. Also - and this stood out to me right away - they said that according to Newtons law - every action has an opposite reaction - that when the person gets blown back it would mean the...

ARLINGTON, Virginia — The Transportation Security Administration is denying allegations that an airport screener seized a toddler's cup and mistreated his mother, taking the unusual step of posting security camera footage on its Web site. At issue is whether Monica Emmerson, a former Secret Service officer, was improperly detained June 11 after she spilled water out of her child's cup at Washington's Reagan National Airport. TSA has banned most fluids at airport security checkpoints because of concern about possible liquid explosives. A TSA report said Emmerson told an officer she was a Secret Service agent, flashed her credentials and said...

Q From an Oregon reader: "If I put a bottle of beer in the freezer (for a little too long), when I take it out the beer is still liquid until I pop the cap, whereupon the stuff begins to freeze and ooze out of the bottle. Why the sudden phase transition? I know if I leave the bottle in far too long the beer will freeze with the cap on." A Depending on its alcohol content, beer will freeze at 2-10 degrees colder than water so it freezes slower, which is why you can usually remember to take it...

Mythbusters investigate the source of the diet cola/Mentos reaction. Also, try to confirm/bust postage stamp on helicopter blade myth

SAN FRANCISCO - It wasn't exactly the ancient siege of Syracuse, but rather a curious quest for scientific validation. According to sparse historical writings, the Greek mathematician Archimedes torched a fleet of invading Roman ships by reflecting the sun's powerful rays with a mirrored device made of glass or bronze. More than 2,000 years later, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Arizona set out to recreate Archimedes' fabled death ray Saturday in an experiment sponsored by the Discovery Channel program "MythBusters." Their attempts to set fire to an 80-year-old fishing boat using their own versions...

Episode 35: Border Slingshot Is it feasible to fly over the frontier? In this episode, Adam and Jamie take on the myth that illegal immigrants are firing themselves 200 yards across the border and into the United States with a slingshot so accurate, it can land the human projectiles safely on a carefully placed mattress. Border patrols are reportedly baffled — can the MythBusters' handbuilt human-sized slingshot solve the puzzle? premiere: July 27, 2005