See thru Aluminum and Girly Guns

Death by Cute

Hello Kitty Expands Upon Arsenal With AR-15 Rifle

With previous releases, such as an AK-47 under it's belt, Hello Kitty looks poised to roll out a full army. This time around, some gun-loving nut put together a Hello Kitty-themed AR-15 assault rifle for his wife (how romantic) and posted the finished result on the interwebs for the world to see. It's so cute, it makes me want to shoot something. [Rifle Gear via Mobilewhack]

Ultrastrong and Stiff Layered Polymer Nanocomposites -- Podsiadlo et al. 318 (5847): 80 -- Science: "Ultrastrong and Stiff Layered Polymer Nanocomposites
Paul Podsiadlo,1 Amit K. Kaushik,2 Ellen M. Arruda,2,3 Anthony M. Waas,2,4 Bong Sup Shim,1 Jiadi Xu,5 Himabindu Nandivada,1 Benjamin G. Pumplin,2 Joerg Lahann,1,3,6 Ayyalusamy Ramamoorthy,5 Nicholas A. Kotov1,6,7*

Nanoscale building blocks are individually exceptionally strong because they are close to ideal, defect-free materials. It is, however, difficult to retain the ideal properties in macroscale composites. Bottom-up assembly of a clay/polymer nanocomposite allowed for the preparation of a homogeneous, optically transparent material with planar orientation of the alumosilicate nanosheets. The stiffness and tensile strength of these multilayer composites are one order of magnitude greater than those of analogous nanocomposites at a processing temperature that is much lower than those of ceramic or polymer materials with similar characteristics. A high level of ordering of the nanoscale building blocks, combined with dense covalent and hydrogen bonding and stiffening of the polymer chains, leads to highly effective load transfer between nanosheets and the polymer."

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it.

by Laura Lundin
Air Force Research Laboratory Public Affairs

10/17/2005 - WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio (AFPN) -- Engineers here are testing a new kind of transparent armor -- stronger and lighter than traditional materials -- that could stop armor-piercing weapons from penetrating vehicle windows.

The Air Force Research Laboratory's materials and manufacturing directorate is testing aluminum oxynitride -- ALONtm -- as a replacement for the traditional multi-layered glass transparencies now used in existing ground and air armored vehicles.