
To see off piranha this fish has strong armour - respinal
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/10/17/to-see-off-piranha-this-fish-has-strong-armour
======
Sharlin
This sort of structure where a hard but brittle material is mated with a
softer but elastic substrate is also one of humankind’s great innovations.
Through trial and error bladesmiths learned to work steel in a way such that
the edge of a tool or weapon blade would harden and better keep its sharpness,
while the spine would be made flexible and shatter-resistant. These opposite
properties are now known to arise from different crystalline phases, or
allotropes, of (carbon-alloyed) iron, in particular martensite and austenite.

------
sliken
[https://outline.com/4KkUXh](https://outline.com/4KkUXh)

------
kelsolaar
Reuters variant which is not behind a paywall:

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-fish/amazon-
fish-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-fish/amazon-fish-wears-
natures-bullet-proof-vest-to-thwart-piranhas-idUSKBN1WV2JS)

------
pvaldes
Resume: Arapaima scales have interesting properties combining strength, and
flexibility in a lightweigth structure

------
copperx
As an English as a second language speaker, this is the first time in years
that a sentence has stumped me. Is this a common construction?

Thanks to a dictionary I now know that "to see off" means "to fend off".

~~~
bsder
It's a British idiom rather than a general English construct.

~~~
sidlls
It's definitely not common in America, where it's more commonly used in, e.g.,
a parting of ways with a close friend or relation for a journey ("see Johhny
off [to the airport for college]").

~~~
Noumenon72
That's the sense I understood this in. That the fish doesn't defeat the
piranhas or "fight them off", but it can ignore them until they give up
because of the armor, and then bid them goodbye.

