State of fear

Starting tomorrow, you’ll be able to sign up with MI5 to receive an email notice when the “Threat Level” changes. Right now it’s “severe”, but they have the fine-grained menu of “low”, “moderate”, “substantial”, “severe” and “critical” to choose from — we certainly need that much more detail compared to the meagre green/yellow/red of the US system that everyone checks each and every morning. In a grotesque act of fearmongering, MI5 use a picture from the September 11 wreckage of the World Trade Center on their page outlining “The Threats”.

But maybe we need a new level for “smelly”, like New York?

[Yes, I know there has been big cosmology news today, but in this twenty-four-science-blogging culture everyone else, like Sean, Clifford and Steinn, has already posted the lovely pictures, and fine explanations, of the dark matter distribution.]