The Sage Gateshead, a £70m performing arts centre on the banks of the Tyne, opened [recently]. Its three music venues are shrouded by a vast and billowing steel-and-glass roof that resembles either a bank of low-lying cumulus clouds hugging the river, or the gun-blisters of a second world war RAF bomber. Guardian

Snapshots show a weighted Ping-Pong ball sinking into dry quicksand. The 4.7-ounce ball disappears in about one-tenth of a second and then expels a narrow jet of sand. ... Traditional deathtrap quicksand is a slurry of sand, water and clay. ... Now Dr. Lohse, a professor of applied physics, and his colleagues at the University of Twente in the Netherlands show that it is possible to vanish into a pile of completely dry sand as well. NY Times

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