The Japanese are going to launch a new solar-powered space ship which will harnass the power of the sun for its energy with huge sails that are thinner than human hair. They are dubbing the project Ikaros. I am assuming this means the engineers only read the first part of the Greek myth before putting it down and assuming everything went well.

Ikaros stands for “Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun.” The name is also a reference to the Greek myth of Icarus, a young man who, with his father Daedalus, attempted to escape exile in Crete by fashioning wings of feathers and wax. According to the myth, Icarus flew too close to the sun, and the heat melted the wax in his wings, causing him to plummet to his death.

Ikaros is scheduled to take to the skies May 18th.

[Mashable]

Autopilot!

As it turns out, flies aren’t just super apt daredevils buzzing around your mighty hand as try to crush the winged pest. Nope, they just have a built in sense of autopilot that adjusts to changing wind currents faster than it would take for them to make a conscious decision to act.

The researchers glued tiny steel pins to the backs of the flies, allowing them to gently nudge the insects off course with a magnetic pulse as they buzzed about. As can be seen in the video, which is slowed down to 1/300th of actual speed, the flies reorient themselves quickly in response to the magnetic pulse (about 7 seconds in)—too quickly, the researchers report, for them to have responded consciously to the change. And that may explain why they’re so hard to swat.

Shoo fly! Or just wait until the wind blows another direction and you move that way without thinking, moron.

[Science Mag]

Ladies and gentleman, meet your new favorite band, Hevisaurus:

The band was born when a flash of lightning and witches’ spells revealed, cracked and brought to life five metal dinosaur eggs buried deep in a mountain 65 million years ago — around the time most other dinosaurs became extinct.

Or so goes the “official” creation story of the long-haired reptiles in spiked bracelets and black leather billed as the world’s only Jurassic metal band.

In reality, the idea hatched in the mind of drummer Mirka Rantanen, 38, a veteran “headbanger” who has played with numerous bands including the Finnish power metal group Thunderstone.
“For years and years you seriously try, and then you toss up this one crazy idea, and everyone gets excited,” said a bemused Rantanen in an interview.

It all started a few years ago when Rantanen attended a children’s concert with his own kids, now five and 11.

“What if I started making music for kids?” he thought. “What if it was heavy metal, since that’s what I’ve been doing for 25 years?”

Did you watch that video? Jesus Christ, seriously. How epic is that power ballad?!?!?

Find their more rocking anthem AFTER THE JUMP…

[Yahoo] (more…)

Hundred-year-old woman grows horn in forehead . The horn began growing on the left side of the forehead of Zhang Ruifang last year. Now it measures 5-6 centimeters long but the elderly woman feels no pain in the horn.

Thanks to WT fan Brian for passing this along.

[Zuzutop]

The hunt for the most infamous floating zoo may have come to an end, if you ask a team of Chinese and Turkish evalgleicals who claim they’ve found the remains of Noah’s Ark.

The remains of Noah’s Ark have been discovered 13,000ft up a Turkish mountain, it has been claimed.

A group of Chinese and Turkish evangelical explorers say they have found wooden remains on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey.

They claim carbon dating proves the relics are 4,800 years old — around the same time the ark was said to be afloat.

Yeung Wing-Cheung, from the Noah’s Ark Ministries International research team, said: “It’s not 100 per cent that it is Noah’s Ark, but we think it is 99.9 per cent that this is it.”

Many believe it was the highest point in the mountain region Mount Ararat where the Ark ran aground.

[The Sun]

In an effort to make a super soldier, the Indian military has turned to a holy man who claims to have not eaten in over 70 years since he was blessed by a goddess.

India’s Defense Research Development Organization thinks it may have found a new secret weapon: an 82-year-old holy man named Prahlad Jani. His tactical advantage: longevity. Jani claims via the UK’s Telegraph that he has not consumed food or drink for 70 years, and military authorities are conducting a rigorous study to see if he’s onto something they could use.

Skeptical? You should be. Medical science says — and there’s some variability here based on differences in metabolism, environment, etc. — that after 3 to 5 days of fasting your glucose levels get seriously out of whack. If you’re still hanging around at day 50, you’re tougher than most. That’s if you’re drinking water. If not, “your body can survive a maximum of 3 days without the intake of water, assuming you are at sea level, at room temperature, and a relative humidity,” says Bruce Zawalsky of the Boreal Wilderness Institute. That’s a far cry from seven decades.

Jani is currently under military observation.

[Pop Sci]

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the best lede ever written for a news story.

An ancient reptile with a 9-foot wingspan was soaring over the sea in what is now North Texas some 95 million years ago when – plop – it fell into the water and died.

A full story of life and death. A dinosaur. The use of the word “plop.” A masterpiece.

Meanwhile…

Analysis of the jaw now suggests it belongs to a new-to-science genus and species of flying reptile or pterosaur, now called Aetodactylus halli after its discoverer Lance Hall, a member of the Dallas Paleontological Society who hunts fossils for a hobby.

“I was scanning the exposure and noticed what at first I thought was a piece of oyster shell spanning across a small erosion valley,” Hall said. “Only about an inch or two was exposed. I almost passed it up thinking it was oyster, but realized it was more tan-colored like bone. I started uncovering it and realized it was the jaw to something – but I had no idea what. It was upside down and when I turned over the snout portion it was nothing but a long row of teeth sockets, which was very exciting.”

Also, Aetodactylus means “eagle finder”.

[Live Science]

A thin film of water ice and organic material has been identified on an asteroid by a NASA telescope. This bolsters the theory that an asteroid brought both crucial elements for life to Earth.

“It now appears that when the asteroids and planets were first forming in the very early Solar System, ice extended far into the Main Belt region,” said Josh Emery, a planetary scientist at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. “Extending this refined view to planetary systems around other stars, the building blocks of life — water and organics — may be more common near each star’s habitable zone.”

The discovery also confuses the definition of comets and asteroids, in case you were wondering.

[Pop Sci]

In case you were tired of running down all the conspiracy angles for the Air Forces’ new X-37B shuttle, here is a fresh new piece of AF intrigue for you to chew on.

The Air Force’s Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2—designed to attack global targets at Mach 20—has disappeared nine minutes into its first test flight, just after separating from its booster. Contact was lost, and it hasn’t been found yet.

The Falcon was supposed to splash down in the Pacific Ocean after a 30-minute, 4,100-nautical-mile test flight. Not to be confused with the unmanned X-37B space shuttle—which launched on April 22—the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 blasted off last week from the Vandenberg Air Force Base on a Minotaur IV rocket.

The Falcon is designed to launch conventional weapons at any point on the globe in under one hour, Gizmodo continues.

[Gizmodo]

Flower, for my dearest?

A rare behemoth flower — dubbed the “corpse flower” for its rotting-meat smell — is set to bloom at Western Illinois University this week. It’s one of a small group of these flowers that have bloomed in cultivation since the 1880s.

As of Monday, the mega flower (one of four in the university’s greenhouse), was 44.5 inches (113 centimeters) tall, having grown nearly 4 inches (about 5.7 cm) in 24 hours. In the wild, the plant can grow as big as 20 feet (6 meters) tall and 15 feet (4.5 meters) across.

“The Titans in the WIU Botany Greenhouse will only get about half that in size,” said Jeff Hillyer, greenhouse gardner at WIU.

This one might be kind of redundant to leave on a grave stone…

[Live Science]

Study gave test subjects fake mustaches and wicked amish beards to see how much visual speech recognition was affected.

Investigating the interference of facial hair with visual speech intelligibility poses the problem of accurately controlling the amount and shape of facial hair across several speakers while keeping the recording situation constant. Since it is difficult to find participants willing to grow and then cut their beards as needed, we decided to use artificial beards made from natural hair. Two different types were chosen: mustache and long chin beard.

This explains why understanding hockey players en route the Stanley Cup because more and more of a chore

[Improbable Research]

Headline: SEA SERPENT NEARS SHORE DISPORTS IN SURF AT OCEAN PARK STAYS BEYOND RANGE OF RIFLE SHOTS

“The first thing which attracted my attention was when a huge head bobbed up
above the surface of the water,” said Mr. Franklyn last night.

“This head was about the size of a keg. A great mouth was cut across the
lower part of it and gleaming teeth could be seen.

“I had with me a powerful pair of spyglasses and I turned them toward the
creature. From where I was standing the eyes appeared to be as large as
base balls and to protrude from the head.

“The creature was about thirty feet long and was striped.

“Running along its spine was a great fin, while two other fins protruded
from the sides. With these fins the serpent lashed the water about it to a
foam as it swam back and forth.

“I could not at first believe that I was seeing anything real and I rubbed
the lenses of my glasses in astonishment. At last I handed them to Mathews
and for several minutes he stood gazing at the creature.

The fine reporting was done by the Los Angeles Herald on September 2, 1907.

[Cryptomundo]

Cleric said boobs cause earthquake. Boobs tried to do just that. Boobs failed.

Hooray science!

Could be the path to besting bacteria like E.Coli. High five!

[Science Daily]

See nature? This is what happens when you leave your oil laying around the ocean floor of 35,000 years!

California scientists found two massive asphalt domes on the sea floor, most likely the result of oil deposits made thousands of years ago.

“It was an amazing experience, driving along…and all of a sudden, this mountain is staring you in the face,” said Christopher M. Reddy, director of WHOI’s Coastal Ocean Institute and one of the study’s senior authors, as he described the discovery of the domes using the deep submersible vehicle Alvin. Moreover, the dome was teeming with undersea life. “It was essentially an oasis,” he said, “almost like an artificial reef.”

What really piqued the interest of Reddy — a marine geochemist who studies oil spills — was the chemical composition of the dome: “very unusual asphalt material,” he said. “There aren’t that many opportunities to study oil that’s been sitting around on the bottom of the ocean for 35,000 years.”

This is why we can’t keep anything nice on this sea shelf!

[Science Daily]

Good morning to you too! Bugs. Dew. Camera. Many more where this came from. Hello Monday.

Thanks to Weird Things reader Marty.

[Daily Mail]