The blades on this strap-on don't give the satisfying snikt! that Wolverine's adamantium talons do, but here at Wired they still strike fear in the hearts of, well, just about everyone. Three 11.5-inch stainless steel knives protrude from the wearer's skull-bedecked knuckles, ending in needle-sharp points. After you factor in the metal claws protecting the fist, that's a whopping 17 inches of handy weaponry—all for just $39 (available at trueswords.com). Too many people hogging the Gadget Lab's Wii? No problem. Just give us 30 seconds in there with these blades of gory.

What's the solution to America's crisis in science education? More comic books. In December comes The Stuff of Life: A Graphic Guide to Genetics and DNA, a remarkably thorough explanation of the science of genetics, from Mendel to Venter, with a strand of social urgency spliced in. "If there was ever a time that we needed a push to make science a priority, it's now," says Howard Zimmerman, the book's editor and, not coincidentally, a former elementary-school science teacher. "Advances in treatments for disease cannot take place in a society that shuns science." Zimmerman works with the New York literary publishing house Hill and Wang, which discovered Elie Weisel and has been creating a new niche for itself as one of the premiere producers of major graphic "nonfiction novels" like the war on terror primer After 9/11 and the bio-comic Ronald Reagan.

Stuff of Life is the first in a series dedicated to the hard sciences. The author is Mark Schultz, a DC Comics veteran and creator of the postapocalyptic classic Xenozoic Tales. The 160-page work, illustrated by Kevin Cannon and Zander Cannon (improbably, no genetic relation), covers the regenerative processes of DNA, human migratory patterns, cloned apples, and stem cells. In a rapidly changing field, it's as up-to-date and accurate as possible.

Schultz, like Zimmerman, was attracted by the possibilities of using comics as an educational medium. "It's not prose, and it's not documentary film," Schultz says. "It's kind of its own animal." And the graphic novel market is drawing in different readers than he's accustomed to at DC. "The manga phenomenon," he notes as one example, "is attracting new demographics, like younger women, who weren't picking up on traditional comics."

Not that this is the first time comics have been enlisted for educational purposes. The field goes back to the 1940s, when Will Eisner turned Army instruction manuals into graphic guides for soldiers. Also, there's Larry Gonick's Cartoon Guides of the '80s, with his Cartoon Guide to Genetics being the most obvious precursor here. Stuff of Life builds on Gonick, updating his science and employing a silly yet more effective narrative—alien scientist Bloort 183 presents a PowerPoint on human genetics to his slow-learning leader.

Up next? Possibly evolution. After all, Zimmerman says, "more than half of adult Americans think Earth is about 6,000 years old."

1984: Poison gas leaks from a Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal, India. It spreads throughout the city, killing thousands of people outright and thousands more subsequently in a disaster often described as the worst industrial accident in history.

Union Carbide chose Bhopal, a city of 900,000 people in the state of Madhya Pradesh, because of its central location and its proximity to a lake and to the country's vast rail system.

The plant opened in 1969 and produced the pesticide carbaryl, which was marketed as Sevin. Ten years later the plant began manufacturing methyl isocyanate, or MIC, a cheaper but more toxic substance used in the making of pesticides.

It was MIC gas that was released when water leaked into one of the storage tanks late on the night of Dec. 2, setting off the disaster. Gas began escaping from Tank 610 around 10:30 p.m. although the main warning siren didn't go off for another two hours.

The first effects were felt almost immediately in the vicinity of the plant. As the gas cloud spread into Bhopal proper, residents were awakened to a blinding, vomiting, lung-searing hell. Panic ensued and hundreds of people died in the chaotic stampede that followed.

An exact death toll has never been established. Union Carbide, not surprisingly, set the toll on the low end at 3,800, while municipal workers claimed to have cleared at least 15,000 bodies in the immediate aftermath of the accident. Thousands have died since and an estimated 50,000 people became invalids or developed chronic respiratory conditions as a result of being poisoned.

Regardless of the numbers, all evidence pointed to Union Carbide and its Indian subsidiary, as well as the Indian government, its partner in the factory, being responsible, mainly through negligence, for what occurred. Despite the extreme volatility and toxicity of the chemicals in use at the factory, safeguards known to be substandard were ignored rather than fixed.

In the subsequent investigations and legal proceedings, it was determined, among other things, that:

Staffing at the plant had been cut to save money. Workers who complained about codified safety violations were reprimanded, and occasionally fired.

No plan existed for coping with a disaster of this magnitude.

Tank alarms that would have alerted personnel to the leak hadn't functioned for at least four years.

Other backup systems were either not functioning or nonexistent.

The plant was equipped with a single back-up system, unlike the four-stage system typically found in American plants.

Tank 610 held 42 tons of MIC, well above the prescribed capacity. (It is believed that 27 tons escaped in the leak.)

Water sprays designed to dilute escaping gas were poorly installed and proved ineffective.

Damage known to exist, such as to piping and valves, had not been repaired or replaced because the cost was considered too high. Warnings from U.S. and Indian experts about other shortcomings at the plant were similarly ignored.

The aftermath of the disaster was almost as chaotic. Union Carbide was initially responsive, rushing aid and money to Bhopal. Nevertheless, faced with a $3 billion lawsuit, the company dug in, eventually agreeing to a $470 million settlement, a mere 15 percent of the original claim. In any case, very little money ever reached the victims of the disaster.

Warren Anderson, Union Carbide's CEO, went before Congress in December 1984, pledging his company's renewed commitment to safety, a promise that rang hollow in India (and probably to Congress as well).

Anderson was subsequently charged with manslaughter by Indian prosecutors but managed to evade an international arrest warrant and disappeared. Investigators from Greenpeace, which has kept up an active interest in the case, found Anderson in 2002, alive and well and living comfortably in the Hamptons. The United States has shown no inclination to hand him over to Indian justice, and most of the serious charges against him have been dropped.

Union Carbide, meanwhile, was acquired by the Dow Corporation in 2001, which refused to assume any additional liability for Bhopal, arguing that the debt had already been paid through various court settlements. It did go on to settle another outstanding claim against Union Carbide, this one for $2.2 billion made by asbestos workers in Texas.

A few outstanding legal claims from Bhopal remain to be settled, both in India and the United States, but most of the court wrangling is over.

The victims of the disaster, those who live on, continue dealing with various health problems — including chronic respiratory problems, vision problems and an increased incidence of cancer and birth defects — and an environment that remains contaminated to this day.

Source: Various