Y’know how you can stretch Silly Putty slowly, but if you yank it apart quickly it snaps like it’s brittle? d3o labs has taken that to the extreme. They have a gel that is looks and acts like a gooey Silly Putty, but that hardens instantaneously on impact. Discover says the military is taking a look to see whether it can be made to stop bullets. This stuff really needs some HD, high-speed video online, but until then, thankfully, we have Japanese talk shows.

I appreciate this guy's motivation, from a New Yorker comment on Theatre Of War, a play about the Scottish regiment deployed to Iraq:

At least one veteran declared himself a conscientious objector to the general approval of the play. "I didn't join the Army because I didn't want to work the deli counter at a convenience store," Jason Everman, a heavily tattooed, bearded veteran of the Army Rangers and the Special Forces, who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, said, referring to the play's depiction of soldiers as having been motivated to enlist by the lack of alternatives. "I joined the Army because I had a specific agenda: to develop the warrior aspect of my persona."

As a teen-ager living in Washington state, Everman explained, he had been inspired by the "Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini." "He was the quintessential Renaissance man: an accomplished warrior, an artist, a philosopher," he said. Everman had already taken care of the artistic aspect of his persona, a friend who was with him said, at which Everman admitted that he had been a guitarist. (No kidding: post-encounter intelligence reveals that in the early nineties he played with Nirvana and Soundgarden.) Having left the military in 2006, he is now studying philosophy at Columbia University. "It's the Platonic ideal of the tripartite soul," he said. "Wisdom, courage, and temperance. Those are Plato's words, not mine."

Here's the Cellini autobiography.

I just noticed this really cool workout that I WON'T be doing anytime soon from the T-Nation Third World Workouts article:

Underwater rock runs

Our boats would be anchored about 100 yards off the beach, in around 18 feet of water. We generally used these as the markers, but the workout can be performed just as easily if you run parallel to a beach. You can also use the deep end of a pool. (Just check with the lifeguards first so you don't cause an incident.)

Each two-man team picks a large rock and races to the boat with it. The first man carries the rock while the second man swims above him on the surface. Then they switch. Once they reach the boat, a mooring line is dropped in the water and the rock must be carried up the line onto the deck of the boat. From here, knock out 50 pushups, throw the rock back into the water (check for swimmers first), and return it to the beach.

18 feet deep!? I think by the time I got down there I'd have to come right back up. I also get water up my nose no matter what I do, so I can't imagine this is the workout for me, but man it sounds like fun if you can swim. How the heck one climbs a mooring line while carrying a heavy rock though, I have no idea.

The U.S. Army definitely needs to know how to keep soldiers hydrated doing hard work in demanding environments, and their Work/Rest and Water Consumption document (PDF) contains several interesting revelations, all directly relevant to athletes that train or compete in hot weather:

1. You shouldn't drink more than 1.5 quarts of water per hour.
2. At lower temperatures, 0.75 quarts of water/hour is the rough guideline. At 82°F though, your intake should jump to 1 quart/hour.
3. For me this part is the most interesting: as the temperature goes up above 82°F, the army does not recommend increasing water consumption. Instead, what varies is the amount of rest recommended.
4. A Nalgene bottle is a quart, which is awfully handy for tracking your water consumption based on this model.

For me, this has obvious implications for weekend-long Ultimate Frisbee tournaments, and thus other team sports. More subs! Did I really type so many words to come to a two-word conclusion that everybody likely knew already?