Scientist Creates Thermal Invisibility Cloak

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45226591/ns/technology_and_science-science/

Now the Predator can't stalk us!

Seriously is there anything Science won't invent from Sci-Fi? Cloaking Devices, laser beams, jetpacks, Faster-Than-Light Travel, Deflector Shields, Tractor Beams, and more all have had scientific observations or inventions for them so far.

Can they fit it to a vehicle/infantry combat suit?

If not, call me when they can.

I am now known as Flyboy.

Well, the first part of inventing something is to imagine it, so theoretically there's nothing in science fiction that can't eventually be invented.

It is kind of amazing, though, how recently the progress of science has taken huge and unexpected (but exciting) leaps forward. That is a bona-fide cloaking device, on video, cloaking stuff! It's not a theory, its an actual working prototype of a cloaking shroud. That is so cool!

...Almost as cool as the gosh-darned Mirage Tank that the British have built. Sure, it only works with night vision, but still, its a freaking Mirage Tank.

In the future could someone combine them and create a completely undetectable tank?

Might be difficult to do both at the same time since the carbon nanotubes thing requires the material to be heated to a certain point. So maybe cloak it from visible light during the day, and switch to the night tiles at night? There's also the issue of carbon nanotubes being really expensive to make a sheet of the material, but I'm sure that the price will go down just as it did with plastics a few decades after they were first discovered.

Yeah, the heat thing is kind of an issue. Still, biomechanical implants that make your skin heat-resistant can't be that far off either, right?

"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~Madrugada

Only thing I have to say here: fuckin 'A!

Well, I suppose we could splice in some of the thermophilic enzymes from black smoker bacteria, but we still don't know how to do that to an adult eukaryote. Something to add to your child's genetic repertoire, though?

Another related development just announced by NASA: the blackest material ever made by human hands: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/super-black-material.html

It absorbs almost all spectrum of lightwaves - so its sort of the exact opposite of the invisibility screen that the Texas professor made. Interesting that both involved carbon nanotubes, isn't it?

If you're wondering how this works, basically it uses carefully applied heating to create an artificial mirage. Instead of seeing what's behind the cloak, you see light coming from the background off to the side a bit. Works best on things with a nice even background so it blends in well. Rather like the real-life version of editing something out of a picture by copying and pasting a chunk of the background.

Here's a video of this (or something very much like it) in action.

Sweet. Can I get one?

Now I get what was once said: Science Fiction is actualy fact that nobody realised yet.

Screw Harry Potter and magic, we got science!

Outside of military applications, what use does this have?

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First thought coming to mind: Protection from surveillance. Hey, it might finally be a technological development that runs counter to surveillance!

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Hunting, surveilance and wild life observation come to my mind first.

I'd also imagine that being able to bend light around objects could prove useful for making better telescopes.

I expected something else as the first response to this. Other than that, nudists will be everywhere and we won't even know it

Using it for wildlife observation would be kind of cool but then again most animals are also sensitive with their other senses so I'm not sure if this cloak would be that effective.

"If music be the food of love, PLAY ON" - William Shakespeare

I wonder if it's possible to combine both technologies, creating a vehicle that is both optically and thermally invisible.

"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent."

Ah, but would wearing a cloaking device not mean they are no longer nude?

Anyway, v. cool. I applaud science fiction becoming ever closer to science fact.

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I just wish the cool tech wasn't always military application first and foremost.

That said, all that's left to realizing Ghost in the Shell is the invention of extremely advanced AI, better cybernetic prosthetics, and smokingly hot Japanese women. Wait, we've invented that last one too, right? HALFWAY THERE!

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.

Civilian use is usually an afterthought if it comes around. Remember many of the greatest inventions were popularized or outright invented for military use first. Rocketry used to send up satellites and men to the Moon was built as a terror weapon in WW 2 and then for nukes a decade later, no civilian application for either of those. Likewise the airplane was somewhat of a novelty until World War One revolutionized the production and capabilities of aircraft. (A second revolution of sorts would occur 20 years later in WW 2.)

The military RND will pay for basically any crazy ideas. See: flying humvee, laser planes, star wars. So sometimes a crazy idea pays off and then can be used for something less killy deathy.

Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?

Combine all aforementioned idea to create invisible robotic railgun armed anti-matter powered fighter planes.

"We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent."

^ That can travel much Faster Than Light.