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Thor's hammer gets a Tesla coil, puts out 80,000 volts

Thor's hammer + Tesla coil = zzzzap. Before we get into this, let's talk about safety. You probably shouldn't try this at home. Or at work. Or pretty much anywhere else. We're talking 80,000 volts of electricity. Unless you really know what you're doing, don't try to mess with the elemental forces of nature that were harnessed for this project.

Caleb Kraft from Hackaday and Tesla coil expert Staci Elaan teamed up to bring a comic book legend to life. To make Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, truly summon lightning, they had to provide the lightning in the form of a solid-state Tesla coil embedded into a foam prop. At the push of a button, 80,000 volts of electricity arc from the hammer's top.… Read more

Time to recalculate? Thor's hammer may be a featherweight

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson brought Thor's hammer Mjolnir into the geek spotlight recently by running some calculations on its weight. He shared his findings over Twitter, saying:

If Thor's hammer is made of neutron-star matter, implied by legend, then it weighs as much as a herd of 300-billion elephants

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) February 5, 2013

It's a good thing he said "if," as it's starting to look like he might be wrong. Suveen Mathaudhu is a program manager in the materials science division of the US Army Research Office. He pointed out to The Abstract of North Carolina State University that Thor's hammer is actually made from Uru, a fictional metal found in the faraway realm of Asgard.… Read more

Neil deGrasse Tyson: Thor's hammer weighs 300 billion elephants

Beloved astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is no stranger to the world of comic book superheroes, having already found the location for Superman's home planet. He has now turned his keen scientific mind to the Marvel world and the issue of just how much Thor's mighty hammer weighs.

Thor's hammer Mjölnir is said to be made of neutron-star matter. Tyson did the calculations and determined the hammer must therefore weigh as much as 300 billion elephants. That's not a common form of weight measurement, so we have to do some further calculations to translate elephants into pounds.… Read more

The 404 at Comic-Con, Day 1: The quest for the costume

The truest of believers spend months cutting, sewing, and taping together the perfect custom costume for Comic-Con in San Diego, and the opportunity to flex our geek cred is too tempting to resist, so The 404 hits the floor on the first day to talk with a handful of our favorite cosplayers.

Along the way, we'll poke around shops with costumes for sale and ask for recommendations on which duo would suit us best: Jay and Silent Bob? Wayne and Garth? Thor and Loki? OK, I just want to wear a blonde wig. Join us for a tour of … Read more

'Avengers' DVD to hit Target stores with 90-minute bonus disc

Avengers fans will soon be able to grab the popular movie on Blu-ray and DVD at Target stores, with a little bonus added to the action.

Starting September 25, the retail outlet will be selling the blockbuster film for $32.99. For that you get both the Blu-ray and DVD edition in one single package.

But Target is throwing in a bonus disc called "Building a Dream: Assembling the Avengers." The extra 90-minutes of footage will show how the original Iron Man, Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America films were developed, forging the array of mighty … Read more

Geek eye makeup puts 'Star Wars,' Avengers on your face

Karita Brun is her own designer, makeup artist, model, and photographer. The self-taught artist proudly sports her geeky sensibilities by interpreting characters as diverse at the Hulk and Darth Vader through eye shadow and liner.

"Many comic/movie characters have easily recognizable color or patterns which are easy to transform to makeup," Brun tells Crave. "I just take some key features of a character and start working from there."

Brun has delved into the "Star Wars" universe for both R2-D2 and Darth Vader eyes. Darth presented a special challenge. "My first idea was to do the makeup in the shape of his mask, but as it turned out, it didn't work, it wasn't instantly recognizable," she says. That's when she hit on the idea of adding the lightsaber and cape. The Dark Side has never looked lovelier.… Read more

Personalized superhero action figures: You are Iron Man!

Advances in 3D printing hold great promise for the creation of drugs, medical implants, prosthetics, and now superhero action figure versions of ourselves.

The $125 Personalized Superhero Action Figure available from Firebox is several big steps up from doodling a superhero version of yourself on the inside of your Trapper pocket folder.

It's pretty simple to turn yourself into a mini-me full of rippling muscles and superhuman strength. Take two pictures of yourself, one from the front and one from the side. Send them in to Firebox. Wait for the 3D-printed version of your head and your choice of action figure to arrive.… Read more

Sony Mobile exec: Quad-core smartphones in early 2013

BARCELONA, Spain--Stephen Sneeden, product marketing manager for Sony Mobile, told CNET Asia in an interview here at Mobile World Congress that he predicts the company will likely only release quad-core Sony smartphones in early 2013. He does, however, state that this is just his assumption--the company will make the official announcements when it's ready.

"We're going to join quad-core when we feel that the performance matches the battery efficiency," he said. "Because right now we don't feel that is there. What we are going to be doing in the second half of the year is moving to the Cortex A15 architecture, which we feel outperforms the current quad-core architecture.

"You'll see in 2013, as we're evaluating the quad-core performance where it makes sense, where you're not suffering in quality and the performance truly is there, and there really is something that demanding applications need," he contiuned." That's when we make the right move to quad-core." … Read more

The 404 922: Where Wilson is the 1 percent (podcast)

Our guest today is Robin Yang of Toy Studio, one of Barnes & Noble's premier gaming publishers for the Nook Color tablet. She'll help us out with the rundown that includes stories about the real 53 percent, the long-awaited Facebook app for the iPad, MacBook Air competitor Ultrabooks from Asus, and how to run Android apps on a PC.… Read more