Only 79 British Royal Air Force pilots who stood against the Nazi horde in 1940 are still alive. The Daily Mail gathered 17 of them for a group portrait and told biographical sketches of each one. Here's the tale of Air Commodore John Ellacombe:

Single-handedly took on 12 German planes over the South East coast. ‘I went straight at them and started firing – and didn’t stop.’ He brought his Hurricane down in a field after a bullet hit his engine. ‘As I pulled myself out of the plane I saw a man running towards me, waving a pitchfork and shouting, “I am going to kill you, you bloody German!” He was chasing me around the plane. It was like a scene from Benny Hill.’ Fortunately four British soldiers arrived and disarmed him.

Link via Ace of Spades HQ | Photo: Les Wilson

A Hungarian company called Skyex has invented the StringBike -- a bicycle that uses wires and pulleys instead of a chain. Here's how it works:

The “Stringbike” uses two steel cables attached to pulleys, which move on swinging kidney-shaped discs as you pedal. The discs replace a traditional round gear system, and you can install different discs depending on your needs, according to the Web site Hungarian Ambiance.

The position of the pedals determines the position of the discs, so that they swing in opposition — one is always pulling the bike forward, and the other lags behind. This allows a continuous transmission change, which could help a rider navigate winding streets, because you can more easily control the transmission without having to shift gears.

At the link, you can watch a video demonstrating the technology in slow motion.

http://www.popsci.com/gadgets/article/2010-09/new-chainless-bike-uses-pulley-system-eliminating-grease-and-increasing-cool-factor | Product Site | Photo: Hungarian Ambiance

Wenger, a maker of Swiss Army knives, produces the Giant Knife. It's an enlargement of a previous version and comes with 87 tools and serves 141 functions. The knife costs $1,400 and weighs 2 pounds.

Link

Flickr user stitchFight makes cross stitches inspired by pop culture, including Tank Girl, The Hitchhiker's Guide, and A Clockwork Orange. Pictured above is an Iron Man cross stitch that incorporated glow in the dark thread.

Link via Make

Philippe Croizon, 42, lost his arms and legs in an electrical accident 16 years ago. But that hasn't stopped him from swimming across the English Channel in 13 and a half hours:

He had set off at 6.30am, expecting to spend up to 24 hours in the water. The swim was, he explained, "a symbol of overcoming your limits".

He added: "I've done this for myself, for my family, and for all those who have suffered tragedy and lost their taste for life."[...]

He propels himself using long flippers attached to the stumps of his legs, with attachments on his arms helping him to steer and a mask and snorkel to breathe.

The method lets him average about two miles per hour.

Link via Wired | Photo: Pierre Andrieu/AFP/Getty Images

Artist Jim Woodring made a comic strip on a Möbius strip -- a flat surface with only one side. At the link, you can view a video as well as each panel in this repeating story.

Link via Nerdcore

Previously:
How to Make a Looty
d'Holbachie Yoko's Syrup 82.

(Video Link)

Attorney Steve Miller doesn't hold back. If you want be "on your way to getting rid of that vermin you call a spouse", he's apparently the man to go to.

via Urlesque

The Fibonacci sequence, named after a 13th Century Italian mathematician, is a sequence of numbers in which every third number is the sum of the previous two numbers. This photo circulating the Internet shows pigeons who have landed in roughly that pattern.

via Geekosystem | Math Explanation | Previously: Fibonacci Rings

(Video Link)

Dot is the world's smallest stop motion animated film. It was created by the makers of the Wallace & Gromit series, who used a 50x cell phone microscope.

Animators at the UK studio Aardman used a 3D printer to make 50 different versions of Dot, because she is too small to manipulate or bend like they would other stop-motion animation characters. The figurine’s tiny features stretched the limit of the printer — any smaller and it would be hard to make distinct limbs. Each one was hand-painted by artists looking through a microscope.

via Popular Science

In 1862, Harry Tap invented a device that he hoped would calm his nagging wife. He built six of them, one of which survives to this day and was recently featured on Antiques Roadshow. It's not for sale, but is owned by a museum in Yorkshire:

The inscription down the side reads: 'Hen Pecked Club's Peace Box No. 6, Patent Cure for a Cross Wife.'

The museum's Dale Keeton said: 'The idea of this Hen Pecked Club was that you made your wife very, very happy - black her shoes, make her porridge, carry her handbag.

'If after all that she still henpecked you, you would get some of your friends round, draw back the lid, put your wife in and rock her gently until she was asleep.

'I think it was just a really good excuse for a load of guys to go to the pub.'

Link via The Presurfer | Photo: ExclusivePiX

Discworld author Terry Pratchett was knighted by Queen Elizabeth two years ago. At the time, he lamented that the title didn't come with a sword. So he decided to make his own, mining and smelting the ore himself, adding to it iron from meteorites. With professional guidance, Pratchett personally forged the sword:

With help from his friend Jake Keen — an expert on ancient metal-making techniques — the author dug up 81kg of ore and smelted it in the grounds of his house, using a makeshift kiln built from clay and hay and fuelled with damp sheep manure.

Pratchett, who has Alzheimer's disease, also said he had thrown in "several pieces of meteorites — thunderbolt iron, you see — highly magical, you’ve got to chuck that stuff in whether you believe in it or not".

After days of hammering the metal into bars, he took it to a blacksmith, whom he helped to shape it into a blade, which was finished with silverwork.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/terry-pratchett-creates-a-sword-with-meteorites/story-e6frfro0-1225926584339 via Geekosystem | Photo by Flickr user David Jackmanson used under Creative Commons license

blastr has a roundup of detailed LEGO sculptures inspired by science fiction, including Battlestar Galactica, Stargate, and Firefly. Pictured above is a chestburster from Alien, made by the Avro brothers.

Link | Artists' Website

Three years ago, Alex linked to a story about a spider web that was 200 yards wide. It was made by many spiders sharing the same web. Scientists recently discovered a spider in Madagascar that can individually create a web 80 feet across. It's called the Darwin's bark spider, and makes the largest orb-type spider webs in the world:

It is so big that it can catch 30 or more prey insects at any one time.

Darwin's bark spider weaves what experts call an orb web, the most familiar spider web design.[...]

"They build their web with the orb suspended directly above a river or the water body of a lake, a habitat that no other spider can use," says Professor Ingi Agnarsson, the director of the Museum of Zoology at the University of Puerto Rico, in San Juan who made the discovery with colleagues.

That allows the spiders to catch insects flying over water, and explains why the web is so long.

To reach from one bank to the other, the spider must weave anchoring lines of up to 25m.

Because the web must sustain a comparatively enormous weight over broad distances, researchers are particularly interested in how the web is designed and the composition of the silk. It's 100% tougher than any known silk and is the toughest biological substance known.

Link via Ace of Spades HQ | Photo: M. Kunter

Phillip Graham, 71, of Spartanburg County, South Carolina, drove off an armed home invader. His weapon of opportunity was a Swiffer dust mop:

The man, who was wearing a ski mask, appeared to have a pistol in his hand, Graham said.

Graham was armed too, but only with a Dustbuster in one hand and a Swiffer in the other.

"He told me to get down and I grabbed the Swiffer, started jabbing him with it and it broke off, so I still kept on jabbing,” Graham said. "I told him, 'You get out of my house, you sorry son of a bitch, I'll kill you.' I kept jabbing him and he backed out and ran to the back of the house and then across behind the house."

Link via Say Uncle | Photo by Flickr user firepile used under Creative Commons user

The Universal Record Database is a website that allows users to submit videos of themselves accomplishing great feats. In this case, John Florance and Kevin Gerhart switched pants -- including unbuckling and rebuckling the belts -- in just twelve seconds.

Video Link via Urlesque