Grandma's House

Have you ever wondered if you could swim easier in syrup than in water? Apparently physicists have been wondering this since Einstein and Huygens argued about it in the 17th century. We now have an answer. There's no real difference:

The reason ... is that while you experience more "viscous drag" (basically friction from your movement through the fluid) as the water gets thicker, you generate more forwards force from every stroke. The two effects cancel each other out.

I realize this is a weird thing, so there's no need to write me with that information. Somehow they got 16 volunteers to swim in a pool of guar gum, a thickening agent used in ice cream and other food products. I'm not sure I could have done it, even if I could swim:

Cussler and Gettelfinger took more than 300 kilograms of guar gum and dumped it into a 25-metre swimming pool, creating a gloopy liquid twice as thick as water. "It looked like snot," says Cussler.

Eeewww.