SEALs to Get Swimming Gizmo

Navy SEALs will be swimming to their targets up to 150% faster when they get a new Pentagon gizmo called a PowerSwim. It looks like a mini-glider that attaches to a diver's legs, Popular Mechanics reports. SEALs reportedly take about 2 hours to master it; they have to learn a unique undulating motion that relieves smaller muscles normally used to swim.

PowerSwim should get fighters to targets faster and less fatigued, says a Pentagon project manager, but won't help them go any farther. She adds that some SEALs will discard the gizmo James Bond-style, along with other equipment, just before emerging on land. Now being packaged, the device should be in production by 2008. (More DARPA stories.)