Russian chemists have learned to produce amazing knitted wear. It is comfortable to wear and very difficult, almost impossible to cut up.However, this not an exhaustive list of useful properties of a unique material.

"...Directly on the T-shirt did Don Rumata pull a metal-filled plastic shirt, made in the form of hauberk (local hauberks protected rather well from the sword and the dagger, but a crossbow arrow would break through them..." Bright communist future scheduled by young and still optimistic at that point the Strugatskys brothers for the current century failed to come true in main aspects - so far the society has been developing rather in accordance with anti-Utopists' forecasts or in line with the Strugatskys'more gloomy forecasts. On the other hand, many technical inventions by science fiction writers that seemed absolutely incredible for fifty years have been successfully implemented by contemporary scientists - but they are called differently: radiophones are called - cellular phones, Informatorium - is called the Internet and so on.

As for metal-base laminate invented by the writers, they almost guessed right its name. The amazing material developed by chemists of the Research and Production Center "UVICOM" (Mytischi) is called similar to their invention - black-reinforced plastic (coal-plastic). This is the latest development by the researchers, who have development of the legendary SHM fiber behind themselves - superhighmodular fiber, a successful rival to the no less famous "kevlar" type fiber. It is the SHM which is used for making the most durable devices in the world - cases of centrifuges for uranium isotope separation and for space rockets.

"Development and production of man-to-man defence facilities from high-tens ile aramid fibers in combination with carbon fiber - is one of new directions in our enterprise activity, says one of the authors of the development, Tatiana Sakharova, senior staff scientist. For instance, knitted gloves, oversleeves, aprons and vests made of these fibers are almost ten times lighter than those of chain mail and can stand the impact of carbon steel knife simulator under the loading of 500 N." It is obvious that the shirt made of the fiber produced in the town of Mytischi would have defended Don Rumata from the dagger and the crossbow arrow no worse than the metal-base laminate shirt invented by the writers. In real life, cut-protective gloves and oversleeves would protect the hands of people who have to deal with sharp objects at work. By the way, the UVICOM gloves would be helpful even if the objects are not only sharp but also hot - heating up to 250 degrees C is no problem for the fiber.

Frankly speaking, smatterers do not quite understand why professionals admire so much the gloves protecting from electromagnetic radiation. The point is that in addition to current-conducting carbon fiber, a silver tinsel is added to them, or rather - a silver-plated tinsel fiber, which is a very good conductor. The gloves are made, according to the authors, of the very superhighmodular fiber which is now called not SHM but "Rusar". There is one more insulation layer (made of cotton) between the current-conducting layer and the hand. That provides for gloves' electric resistance at the level of 5 to 15 O.

Olga Maximenko

Further information: T.P. Sakharova, senior staff scientist, Open Joint Stock Company Research and Production Center "UVICOM" (Mytischi), Tel.: + 7
(095) 586-9097, Fax: + 7 (095) 583-3613, uvicom@ropnet.ru