Take that Katana! by John Steele

This is not of earth-shattering political importance, but Professor Greg Olson, a blonde professor at Northwestern University, is creating a new generation of super-tough, lighter steels: https://www.wired.com/2001/02/dragonslayer/. There is hope of using these steels throughout industry and the military, but at the moment, in the experimental stage, his team has made a super sword, the dragonslayer, a Beowulf sword.

There is a great mythology associated with the Japanese katana, a sword said to be able to cut rifle barrels in half. It is simply not true: I have used a katana, albeit a cheaper, but still a good one, to cut a forest of weeds, and when I hit a piece of mild steel pipe, the katana bit deeply into the pipe, but was severely chipped. It would not have cut through the pipe of about one inch diameter.
However, turning this all around, Olson’s team have made a  sword capable of cutting a katana in half. I am sure that the Japanese and white fan boys will be saddened to hear that: http://srg.northwestern.edu/.