Why did I have to think of Gunnm when reading this? ;)
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061113/full/061113-11.html
"Sharpest cut from nanotube sword
Carbon nanotech may have given swords of Damascus their edge.
Think carbon nanotubes are new-fangled? Think again. The Crusaders felt
the might of the tube when they fought against the Muslims and their
distinctive, patterned Damascus blades.
Sabres from Damascus, now in Syria, date back as far as 900 AD. Strong
and sharp, they are made from a type of steel called wootz.
Their blades bear a banded pattern thought to have been created as the
sword was annealed and forged. But the secret of the swords' manufacture
was lost in the eighteenth century.
Materials researcher Peter Paufler and his colleagues at Dresden
University, Germany, have taken electron-microscope pictures of the
swords and found that wootz has a microstructure of nano-metre-sized
tubes, just like carbon nanotubes used in modern technologies for their
lightweight strength.
[...]"
--
Kurt Bernhard Pruenner --- Haendelstrasse 17 --- 4020 Linz --- Austria
........It might be written "Mindfuck", but it's spelt "L-A-I-N".......
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