geekosystem

Everybody loves Neil DeGrasse Tyson. So it's no surprise that when DC Comics decided that Superman would try to find Krypton in the night sky in an upcoming issue of ACTION COMICS, they thought Mr. Tyson should be the person to help the Man of Steel. (In such a vulnerable moment, it's important to have support from a friend, right?) What DC wasn't banking on, I'd wager, was how involved Mr. Tyson would become once he agreed to let them use his likeness: Tyson worked with the writers to find a real star that could serve as a plausible location for Krypton's sun based on the relatively fuzzy criteria about the planet's location.

We all already knew that President Barack Obama was a bit of a geek, what with his buying Star Wars memorabilia in public, joking about dilithium crystals, and telling reporters that he was actually born on Krypton, sent by his father Jor-El to save Earth. (Maybe that's what all those birth certificate rumors are actually about?) Now, he's about to add another feather to his cap o' geekiness by appearing on the Discovery Channel's Mythbusters. Obama will appear in an episode exploring the ancient Greek myth that scientist Archimedes was able to set invading Roman ships on fire using reflected, focused light.