The Invisible Man? Kinda.

A lot of people have written in regarding the announcement from scientists at the University of Texas @ Austin discovering "invisibilty". Well, sort of. What it does do is make small areas of skin (humans have not been tested) transparent for a short amount of time. By transparent, I mean 2 mm of transparency - not exactly enough to make me Inside Out Boy. Yet.

Comments

Well, Hell

[SpyceQube]

This just made my Slim Goodbody suit totally obsolete.

This could be a great mugger deterent

[bob_jordan]

if you could somehow do it to order.

Mugger jumps out and demands money, you say something scary in Latin, then say "Your soul is mine mortal", add a cackly laugh, give your self a quick injection and your skin turns transparent.

You wouldn't get the aformentioned mugger out of a church with crowbars.

Bob.

Am I the ONLY one?

[Grimster]

Who wants to see PICTURES and not just a couple, of this in ACTION?

This sounds neat as hell but without pictures it just lacks something.

Just like all new technology...

[Lord Kano]

this is first going to be used by the adult entertainment industry.

Remember the first DVDs you saw on display at your local computer show? I'd bet that they were all pornos.

This is going to be used to make a new level of disgustingly graphic porno.

"New from 'Wet Spot' entertainment a new exclusive, 'Inside Ron Jeremy's ballsack", it's sure to educate while it entertains"

LK

This is not a new discovery

[Riplakish]

There is a product that does about the same thing that has been around for a long time. Actually after you apply it to something, the longer you leave it on the more invisible the object gets. I don't know the trade name for it, but the scientific name is H2SO4.

Simple technology

[skoda]

At first, I said, "Whoa!" in my best Keanu Reeves voice. After reading the article, it seemed like a rather simple technique.

I think they are just doing index matching. Glycerol has an index of refraction close to that of water. Since cells are mostly water, filling all the inter-celluar areas with something of similar index will allow rudimentary index matching to be accomplished. With the index of refraction much closer throughout the volume, scattering will be much reduced, allowing better light propagation, and consequently, better imaging results.

This process is commonly used to test moderately polished glass optics, by immersing them in an oil of equivalent index. Since it's usually bad form to inject living things with mineral oils, a different substance was needed: hence glycerol.

To observe the effect:
- Take a clear piece of hard plastic
- Rough one or both surfaces (sandpaper is good)
- It should now be translucent or even opaque depending on how much you damaged the surface.
- Immerse in water. You should be able to see through it much better.

Anyhow - that's my guess on the basics of this technique.
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Re:10 mm

[jbarnett]

Apple is suing for this transparent design, they claim it infinriges on there iMac model.