Super-Strength Suits: Sit Tight

It looks like we're all going to have to wait a bit for that super-human strength.

Pentagon-backed researchers have been trying for years to build an exoskeleton that enables the wearer carry more than they could ordinarily handle -- while letting 'em move around naturally, in the process. The geeks have got the extra lifting power cracked; the exoskeletons can make loads of 100 pounds feel like nothing. It's the normal walking part that's still got the researchers stumped.

The latest example comes from MIT, where prosthetic specialist (and prosthetic wearer) Hugh Herr has a new exoskeleton design.

Herr and his DARPA-funded researchers report in a new paper that their prototype can successfully take on 80 percent of an 80-pound load carried on a person's back," MIT notes. "But there's one catch: The current model impedes the natural walking gait of the person wearing it."

When the MIT researchers tested their device, they found that although the load borne by the wearer's back was lightened, the person carrying the load had to consume 10 percent more oxygen than normal, because of the extra effort to compensate for the gait interference.

Still, as our sister blog *Gadget Lab *observes, Herr has beyond-lofty goals for his creation:

"Our dream is that 20 years from now, people won't go to bike racks--they'll go to leg racks," he said.