Breakfast Granola for 4/7/10

Bulletproof t-shirts? io9 says yes:

Chemists discovered how to turn cotton fibers to boron carbide, creating armor from t-shirts.

Though the process is still experimental, it could lead to extremely flexible, strong body armor that weighs far less than the current models.

According to Chemistry World:

In the research, squares were cut from 100 per cent cotton T-shirts and soaked in a solution of boron powder and a nickel-based catalyst, before being heated to around 1100ºC for four hours under a flow of argon [to prevent the material from] burning. 'Cotton fibres have lots of small pores which can be used to trap the powder,' [lead researcher Xiaodong] Li explains. 'During the process the cotton fibres change to carbon fibres - which react with the boron powder, producing [boron carbide].'