While flying or flight helmets like these are great ways to look like a cyborg, I’d still prefer it if they had more appealing paint jobs. [Oobject]

This week, Gizmodo is exploring the enhanced human future in a segment we call This Cyborg Life. It’s about what happens when we treat our body less as a sacred object and more as what it is: Nature’s ultimate machine.

Supposedly, the radar will be able to see through fog and dust — even walls. It’s also compact enough to be practical — no more than 1kg with less than 0.5kg of hardware actually mounted to the helmet. Sounds like an awesome tool to keep our soldiers safe, but there are a few problems that would need to be addressed. Outside of possible health issues, the radar helmet would need to be able to distinguish enemies from friends and woodland creatures. Plus, the power supply feeding the device would need to be compact and powerful. That’s easier said than done of course, so I wouldn’t expect this technology to see action anytime soon. [Danger Room Image via Flickr]

Unfortunately for nerds, the woman isn’t a robot — she still has free will. On the other hand, technology like this does have potential in navigational devices that don’t require visual cues. [Kajimoto via Engadget]

Generally speaking, bird watching doesn’t provide many death defying thrills. All that is about to change with the hummingbird feeder helmet.

If you have ever seen a hummingbird up close, you should know that long beaks and wings flapping up to 80 times per second is not something you want anywhere near your eyes. But that is exactly what happens with the helmet. After leaving it outside for a period of time for hummingbirds to grow accustomed to, you should be able to coax the birds to feed from a tube located right between your eyes. Going cross-eyed was never so much fun! Believe it or not, you can actually get in on this action for $US80. [eye2eye via Craziest Gadgets via Gearfuse]

Houses are a dangerous place for toddlers. There are all sorts of hard edges, acute angles and unforeseen swinging things. Such as doors. Or an older sibling’s cricket bat.

To help your toddler survive this cruel stage of their younger years, a stage punctuated by a great many minor accidents that thankfully they will not remember (unless there’s scarring involved), there is the Thudguard.

Otherwise known as an “Infant Safety Hat”, the Thudguard is the ideal precursory step to introducing your toddler to a life wrapped in cotton wool. Correct me if you think you need to, but how did humankind manage to make it this far without wrapping our youngsters’ heads in shock absorbent padding? Surely, learning to avoid collisions through the excellent teacher that is a sharp dose of pain is actually how we learn to survive?

One last Babymodo entry comes in the form of the baby toupee. That’s right. Wigs. For babies. Because some people don’t have poodles. They have kids. Or… they didn’t get a Thudguard and need to conceal the misfortunes that follow a knee-high existence.

Other features include an EverClear No-Fog faceshield and an anti-scratch retractable SpeedView sun visor. Truth be told, this certainly isn’t the first modular helmet out there. However, at $US270-$280 the Scorpion would be far cheaper than something like BMW’s System 6—although the latter has advanced noise cancelling features and integrated Bluetooth. [Scorpion via Jalopnik]

It’s a good idea, and combined with this technology, which monitors the force of impacts to the head, we could soon see the perfect helmet to make football an all-around safer activity. If that’s what we want to do.

I can’t be more clear: I don’t like seeing kids dying out on the football field, or afterward because no one knew how badly they were injured or overheated. But the sporting culture seems to demand human sacrifice.

Why do pro boxers eschew the helmet that amateur Olympian pugilists are required to wear? Why are there entire insanely funny movies devoted to the fact that hockey got boring when it eased up on rink bloodshed? And why is it that most people only remember the car races where somebody flips up into the catchfence and scatters debris into the grandstand? Think it over. [PopSci]

The helmet projects an augmented reality world inside its visor. This image is created by a visualisation, targeting, and situational awareness marvel called Electro Optical Distributed Aperture System, which combines the feeds from six advanced infrared digital cameras located around the aircraft and other sensors—like radar—into a seamless 360-degree spherical panorama, all in real time.

The panorama inside the helmet effectively makes the F-35 completely invisible to the pilot. In fact, he will be invisible to himself: If he looks down to his legs, he won’t see anything but the ground. He will be able to look to any direction and get a clear view of what is happening, day or night. And not only the image is crystal clear at all times, but it also gets overlaid with information from the targeting system.

The targeting and radar systems can detect any moving object in the ground or the air, identifying them it as friend or foe, as well as their direction under any conditions. It then allows the pilot to lock on one, fire, and direct the weapons towards it.

The system is apparently so advanced that Northrop Grumman—the manufacturer—goes as far as saying that it makes the F-35’s maneuverability irrelevant: “Instead of mutual kills, the F-35 simply exits the fight, and lets its missiles do the turning.” I don’t know if that will prove true in actual combat, but it doesn’t make the helmet and DAS less impressive. [Flight Global]

So the Hell’s Angels laughed at you for pulling up to the roadhouse on a moped with a basket. Ok, you’re not biker material—but you can still look the part with these spooky helmets.

The creatures found on these handmade helmets were created by a Brazilian artist who affixed bones, teeth and “fine stones” found in the Amazon to a standard open-faced motorcycle helmet. Despite their appearance, the artist claims that the helmets are DOT approved—although I certainly wouldn’t want to rely on one skidding along the pavement at 80kph. Still, you cant beat the $US99 price tag if you want a real menacing look without having to endure the permanence and pain of a sleeve of tattoos. [Craigslist via Jalopnik]