The remarkably tough scales of a huge air-breathing fresh water fish in the Amazon Basin named "Arapaima gigas" were the subject of a recent study led by Robert Ritchie of Berkeley Lab's Materials ...

We've seen scientists examine everything from the structure of sea sponges to the clubbing ability of mantis shrimps in the search for next generation lightweight armor systems. Researchers at ...

Fish scales are serving as the inspiration for a new type of body armour funded by the U.S. Army. American and Israeli researchers have produced prototypes of the armour, which mimics the overlapping ...

IN DAYS of old, knights protected themselves in armour made up of tough, interlocking “scales”. This idea might one day be revisited, with future soldiers decked out in scales inspired by the almost ...

The sturdy armor of the dragon fish (Polypterus senegalus) has kept this tough, ancient species going for 96 million years – since the Cretaceous! Each scale that covers its long body has multiple ...

Researchers at the University of Zurich have investigated a unique leather scale armor found in the tomb of a horse rider in Northwest China. Design and construction details of the armor indicate that ...

A research team in Changsha in central China’s Hunan province said it had developed the world’s first lightweight, flexible body shield to protect soldiers from armour-piercing weapons. Three rounds ...

Researchers from the Jiangxi Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute in China have recovered the remains of a complex scale armor recovered from an over 2,000-year-old Han ...

Armor pieces from the tomb of the Marquis Haihun Photos: Courtesy of the Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology A set of scale armor dating back to the Western Han Dynasty ...