An Invisible Man with perfect vision sounds like a superhero from a comic, but may be close to reality thanks to scientists at the University of St Andrews. A team of physicists are one step closer to creating a Harry Potter-style invisibility cloak, with a new form of material that could also be attached to contact lenses to provide ‘perfect’ eyesight. Here comes the science.
posted by chavenet on Nov 4, 2010 - 38 comments

"This is a story about a different thing. Something I call Man to Man (M2M)" This blog entry describes the events of a clay pigeon shooting outing as experienced by young woman of color. She muses about whether she should have removed her invisibility cloak and called out the M2M business at play.
posted by la_scribbler on Apr 16, 2010 - 127 comments

So, they're making invisibility cloaks. previously.
posted by jimmythefish on Aug 11, 2008 - 49 comments

Apparently, the new black is... really, really black. "Researchers in New York reported this month that they have created a paper-thin material that absorbs 99.955 percent of the light that hits it, making it by far the darkest substance ever made -- about 30 times as dark as the government's current standard for blackest black." But what possible benefit to society could come from this blacker than black substance? Why, invisibility cloaks, of course! [more inside]
posted by willie11 on Feb 20, 2008 - 53 comments

9 Superpowers made real. [Via Digg.]
posted by homunculus on Jul 20, 2007 - 33 comments

Cloaking Device Revealed. in a joint effort, US and British scientists succesfully make a copper cylinder invisble to microwaves at Duke University thanks to metamaterials. (Previous invisibility posts on the Blue.)
posted by luminous phenomena on Oct 20, 2006 - 28 comments

Science imitates Star Trek, again. Physicists Nicolae Nicorovici and Graeme Milton have published a paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences outlining a theoretical means for constructing a cloaking device. A superlens constructed from a metamaterial with a negative refractive index could be used to create a resonance that cancelled the light coming off of a (very small) object, rendering it invisible.
posted by justkevin on May 3, 2006 - 11 comments

Invisibility cloak! "The idea is very simple. If you project background image onto the masked object, you can observe the masked object just as if it were virtually transparent". The Optical Camouflage page has more applications and video of a (nearly) invisible man. (First seen in Time's coolest of 2003)
posted by iffley on Jun 14, 2004 - 10 comments

Japanese create "invisible" cloak. Well, not really. Technically, just a two sided cloak, the front of which is a projector, and the back of which is a camera. Only works, one would imagine, if you're looking at a person straight on, and even then it would help if you were partially blind, or at the very least, raised in the wilderness & easily fooled by modern technology.
posted by jonson on Feb 5, 2003 - 55 comments

Marines use high tech website in the War on Terror. Very interesting idea. Use the internet instead of the C4 systems that have already been bought...cause it works better. I believe it. With Wired (via Fark) having an article on "The Marines' arsenal of the future is starting to look a whole lot like the shelves at Toys "R" Us.", and another on powered exoskeletons, and yet another that mentions invisibility cloaks, how long before "The War of the Future" is here? What's it going to look like? I can envision a lot more people interested in the armed forces if they get to play with cool toys like this.
posted by taumeson on May 30, 2002 - 14 comments

The US army selects MIT for $50 million superhuman exoskeleton project. Includes nanomaterials, invisibility, superhuman strength, protection from ballistics, and a built in kit for autonomous treatment. Will this be the soldier of the future?
posted by Aikido on Mar 14, 2002 - 37 comments

Texas Scientists achieved 20 minutes of invisibility on 10 mm of skin of a rat. I know this is a great advance in medicine and all that stuff, but what concerns me is this may be also a new generation of spies, terrorists and thieves...or am I just paranoid?
posted by neo on Aug 23, 2000 - 16 comments