Don't take medicine to stop a fever?

It's generally accepted that fever helps your body fight infection.
(eg http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/nov/06fever.htm )

This makes me curious about the role of drugs like Tylenol. If you take Tylenol to lower a fever, aren't you handicapping your body in its fight against the infection?

A few minutes of googling did not offer an easy answer. This shouldn't be a hard experiment to do. You can get a few hundred adults and have them either take or not take fever-reducing drugs whenever they get a fever over the next year. Then you can see if the total length of the infection (as measured by sick days taken) is affected.

Color-changing roofs to save energy

I had this idea a few years back, and I'm excited that someone with actual materials science knowledge made it happen.

http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2251163/mits-chameleon-tiles-promise

Apparently LA could save a ton of energy and reduce "urban heat island" temperature bumps by having everyone paint their roofs white. However, most cities in the north would need to have white roofs in the summer and black roofs in the winter for maximum energy savings.

Palo Alto city council NIMBYism

"High speed rail from SF to LA? Of course, that would be lovely! We must do it, to save the environment!"

"Wait, it's going through our town? OH NO YOU DON'T! It will be noisy and drive down property values!"

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_13512735

Oh, I've got a crazy idea. Let's put the high speed rail line next to something that's already noisy, like Highway 101 or Caltrain. We could even put poles along the median and have the train run along that. Problem solved.

OK, now I know who to vote for in an otherwise boring city council election.