'Bones': Oversexed scientists and ZZ Top

Hey, "Bones!" See that blue-lit pressure chamber over there? See how it's all shiny and enticing? You want to go in it, don't you? Well, don't! Have you learned nothing from Watchmen, or, say, every other sci-fi flick involving sealable rooms ever made? I mean, really, folks -- that's almost as dumb as pissing off a founding member of ZZ Top!

Our Corpse of the Week is more mangled that usual -- it's a couple of garbage bags full of flesh and bone fragments, looking like chili con carne. And just like that, I'm off chili for life. The body has been through the ringer -- the cells exploded from the inside out, suggesting they were frozen; there was evidence of advanced leukemia and tumors on the bones; some marks on the collarbone suggested a stabbing; and the bones had basically crumbled along their weakest points.

Hodgins finds fragments of gold and what appears to be part of a black pearl in the mess. It's not -- it's a fragment of a meteorite. The meteorite in question is at the Collar Institute, where randy scientists think great thoughts and have frequent sex. Among the denizens:

• Landis Collar, a superconductivity expert. He's also blind, and is working on a spiffy echolocation device.
• Chris, who is working on  harnessing energy from earthquakes
• Milton, who is working on Star Trek transporter technology, starting with pond scum
• Jennifer, working on new methods of carbon dating with radioactive isotopes.

The dead person was Diane Sidman, a theoretical physicist, editor of the institute's scientific journal, and a contributing genius to the Hadron Large Collider (you know, that thing that will either advance science incalcuably or cause a blackhole that swallows the Earth). She was also Landis' fiancée (the gold and meteor fragments came from her engagement ring), but she was sleeping with Chris. Suspicious! Or maybe not -- it seems everyone was bonking everyone else at the Institute. But they're all FAR too rational to have killed out of jealousy! It must have been something else!

Well, let's see, what do genius-types care about? What would they kill for? Why, for science, of course! And in this case, with science, as well. A radioactive isotope was painted on Diane's chair, giving her quick-acting cancer. When that didn't kille rher quickly enough, the murderer stabbed her with a pencil, then flash-froze the body with liquid nitrogen. And if you watch movies, you know that flash-frozen bodies shatter when they're dropped or hit, right? Wrong. Apparently, they bounce.

OK, so how about massive vibrations? There were plenty of opportunities for vibrations at the institute -- Landis, Chris and Milton all used vibrational chambers in their work. Booth and Brennan investigate one of the sonic resonance chambers, and they are, of course, locked in. Someone turns on the sonic juice, and their brains are in danger of becoming pudding. But they are saved -- either because Brennan counteracted the sonic wavelength with whale sounds, or because Booth shot out the window and attracted help. My money's on the gun.

The team goes over the chamber with Luminol, and finds blood. Or, um, vegetable matter. Or copper. Or cleaning fluid. Or... seriously, Luminol seems to pick up a lot of stuff. But hey, vegetable matter -- like pond scum? Yes, indeed -- Milton as ready to publish a paper on his pond-scum transporter, and Diane demanded co-credit because he used her physics theories, or something. Rather than share credit, he decided to kill her.

Booth and Brennan
Hey, finally some Booth/Brennan interaction! Booth gets a little wigged by all the smarties around him, and also by all the sex that said smarties are indulging in. He also predicts that Collar will hit on Brennan as soon as physically possible. Booth tries to explain why he's so disturbed by the thought of Collar moving on from his fiancée's death so quickly -- good people leave marks on you, and you need to let them fade away, rather than scrubbing them off. Brennan... kind of doesn't get it. But when Collar does, in fact, ask for her number, she declines. "You know what? You're the only smart person I like," Booth tells her. Awwww.

Later, Brennan tries to return the favor, but fails in a spectacularly Brennan-esque fashion:

Finally, she finds the right words. There are a lot of brilliant people around (Angela not among them, according to Brennan), but Booth has something equally if not more important -- the ability to use that intelligence. Nice save, Brennan.

The Lab Rats and the Outside World
Hodgins and TriviaMaster NotZach get to experiment, which is always fun. First, they attempt to fire a meteor-like substance at a dummy with a cannon to prove.. well, to prove that shooting cannons at things is wicked cool. Cam is not amused by the ensuing destruction. Then, they try to prove that a flash-frozen body will shatter when dropped from a great height. They do so with a turkey -- which bounces, and deals Angela a glancing blow. Heh.

Speaking of Angela -- her daddy is in town, and he is NOT happy with Hodgins. Angela tries to get Hodgins to flee, but he refuses. He should have. Billy Gibbons is one scary dude. Angela thinks she gets her  daddy to back off, but Hodgins wakes up alone in the desert somewhere, with a massive portrait of Angela tattooed on his shoulder. Heh. Apparently Billy Gibbons agrees with Booth that good people leave a mark -- whether you like it or not!

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