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]

Stephen Hawking is a world renown thinker and a one of a kind personality. Now, he’s also the guy who can flop the “told ya so” card when we are enslaved by a nomadic race of aliens.

“We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet,” the award-winning British scientist said in a series for the Discovery Channel, “Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking.”

To drive the point home, Hawking argued that aliens visiting Earth would likely be the same as when explorers first arrived in the New World.

“If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans,” he said.

His solution: stop trying to talk to aliens. Our solution: welcome our new wise and just overlords with open arms.

[National Geographic via Boing Boing]

[Oddly Specific via pharyngula]

Thomas Morton of VBS.com takes the sewers of Bogota, Columbia where he experiences the lives of children living a subterranean life style fleeing the police, getting high on crack and trying to forget that they are waist deep in feces.

[VBS.com]

Pretty self-explanatory. Big ups to Atlas Obscura!

We reported a few days ago an edict laid down by an Iranian cleric claiming immodestly dressed women were a contributing factor for earthquakes. Specifically intimating that ladies hoeing it up this year has been the root cause of the high profile quakes in Haiti, Chile and Mexico.

But if he thinks it was bad before, just wait until this coming Monday. A Facebook group entitled Boobquake is looking to shake things up, cleavage-style.

The movement calls for all women to really shake what their mother gave them in an effort to tip the cleric’s Islamic espers and spur the tectonic plates somewhere on the earth. If it doesn’t cause an earthquake, then surely the “halter top=earthquake” theory has some ‘splaining to do.

Ladies, get ready to bring the mountains to Mohammed!

[CNN]

Apparently, the larger head has attacked the smaller one. Sleep with one eye open, smaller head.

[BBC via BoingBoing]

HEADLINE: Wilmington blue laws help block Satan’s progress

Wilmington Morning Star: Friday May 18th, 1984

[Google News Archives]