Seriously, pack your bags. We found a new Earth and I am personally going to wait at Cape Canaveral until someone will sell me a ticket on the first Space Ark to Splitsville.

Our new digs are right in the Goldilocks Zone and according the team that located it, the chances of life are pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.

And the planet’s discoverers are optimistic about the prospects for finding life there.

“Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say, my own personal feeling is that the chances of life on this planet are 100 percent,” said Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, during a press briefing today. “I have almost no doubt about it.”

Now if you’ll excuse me I am going to be running up all my credit cards. Try and follow me with that score to space, suckers!

[Space]

Holy crap! That is all.

[Nat Geo]

Ladies and gentleman, the Tailless Whip Scorpion otherwise known as the Whip Spider which is actually neither a scorpion nor spider. Discuss…

[Nat Geo]

Here is the XOS 2, a creation of Raytheon that is billed as the closest thing to an Iron Man suit but is really just a super sick exoskeleton that allows for increased strength without having to be tethered to a power source.

Also, Paramount demo’d one of these as a promotion for the home video release of Iron Man 2. Pretty boss move by them.

[Live Science]

Possibly. But probably not.

[Pop Sci]

There has been a long simmering debate in the scientific community over “the Hobbit” or Homo floresiensis by it’s fancy name. On one side is a cadre of folks who claim that the Hobbits (whose remains were first found inside a Indonesian cave in 2003) are a different species than humans.

But new research suggests those people can stick that theory in their pipes an smoke it. It looks like Homo floresiensis could be just regular old Homo sapiens afflicted with an iodine deficiency.

Oh well.

[Science Daily]

According to some retired Air Force officers, UFOs have a habit of hovering over military bases and shutting down nuclear missiles. Although they concede that the objects may not have been alien in origin, according to them, their memories are undeniable.

“I was on duty when an object came over and hovered directly over the site,” Salas said, regarding the March 16, 1967, event at Malmstrom AFB in Montana. “The missiles shut down, 10 Minuteman missiles. And the same thing happened at another site a week later,” he said.

Six former officials will discuss this happening and others at an event at the National Press Club. Please tell me someone who reads this site works there or will be attending that day. Please?

[Fox News]

Andrew tells the story of his father’s encounter with a mermaid. No really. Well, kind of sort of. President Bri and team plan to rob a third world country of its national treasures.

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You may in your lifetime have thought Utah a bit odd, it’s okay, I’m writing this from Florida we all have our quirks. But if you thought the Beehive State was weird before, imagine when these two were farting around:

Two remarkable new species of horned dinosaurs have been found in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, southern Utah. The giant plant-eaters were inhabitants of the “lost continent” of Laramidia, formed when a shallow sea flooded the central region of North America, isolating the eastern and western portions of the continent for millions of years during the Late Cretaceous Period.

One of the two featured 15 (count ’em, 15!) horns. That’s hardcore.

[Science Daily]

A new species of buffed-cheeked gibbon with a very distinctive call was identified by German researchers. Not only does this have implications on the heavily endangered gibbon in general, but the ape song could be the precursor to human music…

“An analysis of the frequency and tempo of their calls, along with genetic research, show that this is, in fact, a new species.”

The distinctive song “serves to defend territory or might even be a precursor of the music humans make,” the statement added.

Buffed-cheeked gibbon sounds like a third guy in on a remix, like “Tik Tok by Ke$ha feat. Lok D and Buffed-Cheek Gibbon.”

[AFP]

Okay, there is still no evidence that it actually happened but now science can explain a scenario in which the biblical parting of the Red Sea could have gone down. You know, without the power of a all-knowing God and stuff:

A strong east wind, blowing overnight, could have swept water off a bend where an ancient river is believed to have merged with a coastal lagoon along the Mediterranean Sea, said study team member Carl Drews of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. While archaeologists and Egyptologists have found little evidence that any events described in Exodus actually happened, the study outlines a perfect storm that could have led to the 3,000-year-old escape.

“People have always been fascinated by this Exodus story, wondering if it comes from historical facts,” Drews said. “What this study shows is that the description of the waters parting indeed has a basis in physical laws.”

Get all the specific calculations and a use of the word “jibes” in a headline at the main article.

[Live Science]

According to researchers, this stuff is the strong enough to swing-patrol the streets of New York City and durable enough to slam the Green Goblin into a midtown high rise, glider and all.

[Nat Geo]

Is it Music Monday up in this piece or what? This little ditty comes from Weird Things reader Joatmon who worked with band The Indoorfins to sing about the Tiktaalik, a fish that walked on its fins.

Read all about this awesome creature here.

It’s a mellow groove to an evolutionary link. Tik tik tik Tiktallik!

[Wikipedia]

Elephant? Or shrew? Shrelephant? Elephew?

The mystery rages on in wild Kenya.

[Live Science]

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]