Invisible Material Could Make Objects 'Disappear'

The purported "invisibility cloak" has been in the news before. However, University of California at Berkley researchers are on the cusp of something big. They've developed a material "that can bend light around 3D objects" in effect, causing them to disappear.

Now, of course this material currently only exists on a nano scale. But these recent developments could potentially one day be scaled up to create great expanses of the material that could conceal objects and even people.

The material derives its cloaking ability from reversing refraction and bending light, which is "the effect that makes a straw placed in water appear bent." By bending light around an object, the idea is that such an effect would make the object invisible to the human eye. But beyond science fiction-esque applications, this nano-tech could be used to make better microscopes in the near future.

[via BBC NEWS]