Ordinary T-shirts could become body armor

From: http://www.physorg.com/news189884043.html
April 7, 2010

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SEM images showing the nanowire arrays in the T-shirt fabric, and diagram illustrating the cross-section of the carbon microfibre coated with boron carbide-nanowires. Image (c) Advanced Materials

(PhysOrg.com) -- A simple cotton T-shirt may one day be converted into tougher, more comfortable body armor for soldiers or police officers.

Researchers at the University of South Carolina, collaborating with others from China and Switzerland, drastically increased the toughness of a T-shirt by combining the carbon in the shirt’s cotton with boron - the third hardest material on earth. The result is a lightweight shirt reinforced with boron carbide, the same material used to protect tanks.

Dr. Xiaodong Li, USC College of Engineering and Computing Distinguished Professor in Mechanical Engineering, co-authored the recent article on the research in the journal, Advanced Materials.

“USC is playing a leading role in this area. This is a true breakthrough,” Li said, calling the research “a conceptual change in fabricating lightweight, fuel-efficient, super-strong and ultra-tough materials. This groundbreaking new study opens up unprecedented opportunities.”

The scientists started with plain, white T-shirts that were cut into thin strips and dipped into a boron solution. The strips were later removed from the solution and heated in an oven. The heat changes the cotton fibers intocarbon fibers, which react with the boron solution and produce boron carbide.

The result is a fabric that’s lightweight but tougher and stiffer than the original T-shirt, yet flexible enough that it can be bent, said Li, who led the group from USC. That flexibility is an improvement over the heavy boron-carbide plates used in bulletproof vests and body armor.

“The currently used boron-carbide bulk material is brittle,” Li said. “The boron-carbide nanowires we synthesized keep the same strength and stiffness of the bulk boron carbide but have super-elasticity. They are not only lightweight but also flexible. We should be able to fabricate much tougher body armors using this new technique. It could even be used to produce lightweight, fuel-efficient cars and aircrafts.”

The resulting boron-carbide fabric can also block almost all ultraviolet rays, Li said.

Provided by University of South Carolina

Whale Penis Leather Option Dumped by Russian Luxury Armored Car Company

From: http://www.treehugger.com/
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada

Photo: Dartz

A New Kind of Penis Car For Billionaire Oligarchs with No Taste
Some companies specialize in excess. Nobody really needs a Rolls Royce, but some people feel a need for exclusivity. Other companies go ever further and attempt excessive excess, like Dartz with its Prombron Monaco Red Diamond Edition armoured car (price tag: £1 million, or $1.65 million). It comes with tons of bling, such as ridiculously hyper-expensive vodka in a flask made out of pure gold, gold-plated windows, pure tungsten exhausts, and diamond-encrusted white gold speed gauges. Totally ridiculous, but I guess if you're some billionaire oligarch with no taste, it can work. Dartz seems to have gone a bit too far with the seats, though: They wanted to make them from whale penis leather (apparently it's very soft), and this drew protest from many environmental groups.

I suppose it's more about the principle than anything else. How many of these monstrosities will Dartz really make? Still, one is too many if a whale has to die just so rich people can sit on marginally softer seats.

After getting lots of angry emails from Greenpeace, the WWF, and PETA's Pamela Anderson, the company decided to drop the whale penis leather seats option. Their press release is quite something (and seems very unprofessional for a company that wants you to pay an insane amount of cash for its products).

Be sure not to miss the shout out to whales at the end

We have no any ideas to kill the whale or something like that. All we want - to make just luxury car. Real luxury car which will be world number one car. [...] All we want to unite luxury and armoring traditions of RussoBalt factory in one car, which brand celebrated 100 years now. At 1922 RussoBalt was renamed to PROMBRON' (ex.RussoBalt).

We just looking for most expensive products for this car - and that's why we choosed whale penis leathure when we checked it is most of most. After wave of protest we realised our mistake and make a decision not to use natural leathure at all. We will focus on world most advanced nanotechnologies to achieve interior highest quality using artificial materials which also was never used for cars. We want to tell our hello to all whales: "Our Sea Brothers! We all know that earth are stand on three whales - we will keep You live! We don't Earth fall down to Ocean!

Photo: Daily Mail

Photo: Daily Mail

In the end, Dartz is probably happy about all this. It's great publicity for their product, and they won't have to find a supplier that carries whale penises.

Trivia: This is the same company that built armored vehicles for Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Tsar Nicolas.

Via Wired, Daily Mail

How To Load An Armored Bentley On A Jet

By Matt Hardigree

Last week, we showed you the under-construction armored Bentley Continental Flying Spur Speed. It's finished, which means it has to go home to, we assume, Southeast Asia. How do you load that much awesome on to a giant cargo jet?

How To Load A Bentley On A Plane

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As you can see from the photos, it's a careful dance involving two forklifts, a lift, various staff, and precision timing. This one-of-a-kind Bentley has a high-level of armor capable of protecting the vehicle from sniper fire, landmines, and whatever else baddies can throw at it. On top of all the equipment it's still a custom Flying Spur Speed designed to the specifications of an unnamed head-of-state, which means you don't want to drop it. And because it's an armored car, you want to start off any transportation by assuring the smoke screen works. [Source: TAC]