We’ve long been a proponent of geek cultures vast importance over other pop culture products for one reason: geeks make things. Geeks see Star Trek communicators and build cell phones to look like them. Geeks see Star Wars light sabers and build real destructive lasers with awesome handles that receive cease and desist letters (since rescinded) from Lucasfilm.

And finally, geeks read about the super light, highly technological armor of Batman and build it for the Air Force.

Grappling hooks attached to siphon electricity from low-hanging power lines. Computers mounted onto a commando’s chest plate. Communications gadgets small enough to fit into gear pouches worn around the waist. The Air Force is actually preparing its special operators to act (and outfit themselves) more like the Batman.

Since 2004, the Air Force has worked to reduce the physical load of gear carried by its Special Operations Forces — the superheroes who seize hostile airfields and rescue captured troops behind enemy lines. Those airmen are often weighed down on these missions, lugging as much as 160 pounds worth of stuff. Since much of the bulk comes from their communications gear, the Air Force opted to cut out heavy batteries to power it, fueling the gear through methanol fuel cells that get lighter as the charge dies. That allows elite airmen to essentially wear their gear like a scaffold, a concept the Air Force calls a “Human Chassis.”

They even shoe-horned in a clumsy acronym to complete it! It’s officially called The Battlefield Air Targeting Man-Aided kNowledge.

Awesome.

[Wired]

Huge thanks to vlogger Ashley Paramore for helping me out with this clip. We talk a little more in-depth about Crocoduck on her channel here. Follow her @HealthyAddict on Twitter.

The figure of pure terror you see before you is not the mascot of an arena league football team. Rather, it’s the artist rendering of an ancient seabird which once roamed modern-day Chile. Fossils of the creature were recently discovered just in time for nightmares to begin.

Thanks to Weird Things reader Darcy for the tip.

[Nat Geo]

Daniel Scott Lasky final wish was to be buried at sea. Unfortunately he accidentally set of a murder investigation when those hired to lay him to rest in a watery grave did not properly weigh down his corpse.

…Lasky’s body resurfaced Saturday. About 9:30 that morning, a fisherman reported a man’s body floating about four miles offshore. Its wrappings had come undone. Sheriff’s marine deputies raced to the scene, along with the Coast Guard. Homicide detectives waited onshore.

Investigators later found Lasky’s intended resting place in his obituary in the Hickory Daily Record: “Burial will be at sea.”

No word yet on if burial regulations were followed.

[Sun-Sentinel]

A POV trip for a engineer working on a 1,768 foot high transmission tower.

Thanks to Weird Things reader Alan for passing this along.

Here’s one to tell the kids.

BELL GARDENS — A family in Bell Gardens has kicked out an unexpected house guest — a snake that bit a sleeping boy and was apparently living inside the walls.

The shocking find was reported just after midnight inside an apartment in the 6600 block of Ajax Ave. near Loveland St.

A few nights ago, a 15-year-old boy who lives inside the home said he awoke to the feeling of something biting him on the arm. It happened again Monday night.

That’s when they discovered the 2-to-3-foot snake slithering around inside a wall heater.

Sleep tight.

[KTLA]

On the left, the mysterious “bearded” antelope photographed in Kenya. On the right, Editor of this site Justin Robert Young.

Weird Things officially has no comment.

[MSNBC]

ESPN put together a well-done summary of how Admiral Ackbar of Star Wars fame almost came to replace the long-deposed Colonel Reb as mascot for The University of Mississippi.

William Allen Barnes is a man on a mission. His journey to find and track the creature known as Bigfoot (although he is loathe to use that particular term) began on a fateful night camping in California.

But his story, begins with the best lede we’ve ever read while editing this site:

On a warm summer night in 1997, local Bigfoot researcher and part-time gold-mining enthusiast William Allen Barnes was plunged headlong into the world of cryptozoology.

His story is well worth reading. Including this incredible line:

“After it left, the adrenaline hit me and I just sat there and shook,” Barnes said. “I got up the next morning and left. It took me four years to go back out there into the canyon by myself, and my gun got bigger every year.”

A part-time gold-mining enthusiast rolling through the Cali campgrounds strapped like Duke Nukem? Hail to the king.

[The Union]

Launching gigantic shuttles into orbit (although awesome) is costly. So what if we just threw that bad boy as hard as we could like a paper airplane and then fitted it with some super sweet rockets to blast that sucker into the cosmos?

An early proposal calls for a wedge-shaped aircraft with scramjets to be launched horizontally on an electrified (magnetic levitation) track or gas-powered sled. The aircraft would fly up to Mach 10, using the scramjets and wings to lift it to the upper reaches of the atmosphere, where a small payload canister or capsule similar to a rocket’s second stage would fire off the back of the aircraft and into orbit.

Engineers also contend the system, with its advanced technologies, will benefit the nation’s high-tech industry by perfecting technologies that would make more efficient commuter rail systems, better batteries for cars and trucks, and numerous other spinoffs.

So we get a reusable solution for shuttle launches and the latest monorail technology? Well that’s good enough for me to link this song!

[Kurzweil]

Pretty hardcore. Granted, the publisher of this site, Andrew Mayne has been known to gargle the stuff but this is awesome just the same.

Get way more detail on why this works at the man’s blog, including one of the most bad assed pictures you will see today.

Thank to Weird Things reader Mitzula for the tip.

[Pop Sci]

This picture was taken in 2007 by a college biology professor simply trying to test the flash during a research project near Lake Travis, TX. The professor and his student wrapped up their business near the creepy lake and left.

It was only after he noticed two points of light that he thought was an animal in the distance. He light blasted the snaps and eventually revealed the lumbering monster you see above.

What could it be? Bigfoot? Ghost? Old Man Withers who wants to scare everyone off the lake so he can buy the land cheap and build an amusement park?

Thanks to Weird Things reader Mike for passing this along.

[Examiner]

Hell yeah.

Spider silk milked from goats may be used to replace body’s strained tendons, ligaments and bones in the future.

In a new experiment, Professor Lewis and his team at the University of Wyoming successfully implanted the silk-making genes from a golden orb spider into a herd of goats.

Spider silk has been used for centuries to dress wounds with varying degrees of success, but the problem has until now been how to get it.

“We needed a way to produce large quantities of the spider silk proteins,” News.com.au quoted Lewis, as saying.

He added: “Spiders can’t be farmed, so that route is out and since they make six different silks, even that would not work if you could.”

It’s all fun and games until spider DNA in a goat creates a real Chupacabra…

Thanks to Weird Things reader Fracis for passing this along.

[ThaIndian]

Astronomers are chuckling to themselves after laypeople paying attention freaked out last week when two astroids swooped through Earth’s orbit, nearly missing our planet. While a double complete asteroid swipe is rare, the still scary idea of a single asteroid nearly destroying our lives happens, like, all the time.

In fact, with a rough estimate of 50 million unknown asteroids, a 33-foot-wide (10-meter) near-Earth object could pass harmlessly between Earth and the orbit of the moon every day, Johnson added. Such an asteroid might hit Earth’s atmosphere once every 10 years, but because of its small size, it would pose no substantial threat to the people or property below.

“They would certainly break up in Earth’s atmosphere, or we might get some meteorites on the ground,” Johnson said.

So, don’t worry so much. Or worry every day. Either way.

[Space]

This is what some Vancouver motorists will see surrounding a local school over the next week. It’s a horrific reminder that YOU ARE ABOUT TO RUN OVER A HELPLESS LITTLE GIRLWATCHOUT!!!! Oh wait, it’s fake? I guess we better slow down then…

These kind of remind me of George Bluth hiring a one-armed actor to have his “arm” “ripped off” in front of his children so they’d learn to follow directions.

The illustrations will be removed in a week to evaluate effectiveness.

[PopSci]

All of your unconscious reactions can now be transferred to Sims like computer characters. The Singularity will arrive with a green crystal over its head.

[Science Daily]