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The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured an amazing image of Uranus, showing in great detail the ice giant's ring system, its brightest moons and its dynamic atmosphere. The new observation, made on Feb. 6, follows a similarly stunning photo JWST captured recently of the solar system's other ice giant, Neptune. The new Uranus image shows 11 of the planet's 13 known rings, some of which are so bright that they blend together somewhat. What will really astound astronomers, however, is the fact that JWST's Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument is sensitive enough to have captured the innermost two...

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You might expect something called a deep-sea dragonfish to be a fearsome leviathan of the deep, dark ocean — and it is, if you happen to be one of the thumb-size ocean critters the dragonfish calls prey. Dragonfish (genus Aristostomias) are wee (only about 6 inches long), eel-like predators with massive, fang-lined jaws that can yawn open at 120-degree angles. These gaping chompers allow dragonfish to devour prey more than half of their size, but their hunting success also depends on another near-supernatural adaptation: invisibility. While dragonfish bodies give off a faint, bioluminescent glow, their teeth are almost completely transparent,...

Inspired perhaps by Harry Potter's invisibility cloak, scientists have recently developed several ways—some simple and some involving new technologies—to hide objects from view. The latest effort, developed at the University of Rochester, not only overcomes some of the limitations of previous devices, but it uses inexpensive, readily available materials in a novel configuration. "There've been many high tech approaches to cloaking and the basic idea behind these is to take light and have it pass around something as if it isn't there, often using high-tech or exotic materials," said John Howell, a professor of physics at the University of Rochester....

Researchers from Boston-area Fractal Antenna Systems, Inc., report additional measurements that confirm its claims of a working ‘invisibility cloak’. In March, 2009, the firm’s research group disclosed the first invention of the invisibility cloak. It had unprecedented ability to work ‘wideband’ and render an object invisible to microwaves. The wideband aspect also demonstrated a path for making invisibility cloaks in the full spectrum of visible light. A previous invisibility cloak effort by Duke University-based researchers had shown some degree of cloaking , but over a narrow frequency band. That cloaking also rendered the object partially detectable/visible by the presence of...

ScienceDaily (May 2, 2009) — The great science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke famously noted the similarities between advanced technology and magic. This summer on the big screen, the young wizard Harry Potter will once again don his magic invisibility cloak and disappear. Meanwhile, researchers with Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley will be studying an invisibility cloak of their own that also hides objects from view. A team led by Xiang Zhang, a principal investigator with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and director of UC Berkeley’s Nano-scale Science and Engineering Center, has created a “carpet cloak”...

It might not seem like much compared with Harry Potter's magic garment, but the first functional invisibility cloak has emerged from a North Carolina laboratory. NOW YOU SEE IT. Microwaves bent by the concentric walls of this 1-centimeter-tall invisibility device circumvent the center area and emerge on their original paths as if nothing had been in the way. The copper hoop that was cloaked in the tests isn't pictured. Schurig et al./Science The disk of concentric fiberglass-and-copper bands—about the size of a cocktail coaster—bends a narrow-frequency range of microwaves around a protected zone at its center. By then reorienting those...

Harry Potter and his pals Ron and Hermione have been scooting undetected around Hogwarts for years beneath the invisibility cloak that Harry got from his murdered father, but now an international team of theoretical physicists suggests that muggles, or nonwizards, might someday make a cloak of their own. Reporting last week in the journal Science, physicists J.B. Pendry of Imperial College London and David Smith and David Schurig of Duke University described a way to make high-tech "metamaterials" that can funnel light around an object and make it invisible. Metamaterials, assemblages of small artificial bits of patterned metal films, can...

Tue 1 Mar 2005 Scientific wizards find real cloak of invisibility JAMES REYNOLDSSCIENCE CORRESPONDENT Key points• American researchers working on 'plasmonic cover' 'cloaking device'• Invisibility shield would prevent objects reflecting and scattering light• Device differs from other invisibility research reliant on chameleon principleKey quote"The concept is an interesting one. It could find uses in stealth technology and camouflage" - Dr John Pendry, physicist, Imperial College London Story in full A CLOAKING device that makes objects invisible is being developed by researchers, bringing the magic of Harry Potter into the world of science fact. While Harry uses his cloak of...

William Shatner wants to boldly go where he's only pretended to go so far. The "Star Trek" star is among more than 7,000 people who have told Richard Branson they would gladly pay him $210,000 (£115,000) for a trip aboard his planned spacecraft, the entrepreneur said Friday. Former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Dave Navarro has signed up for a ride, and a Hollywood director who was not identified has booked an entire ship. Trevor Beattie, chairman of the ad agency TBWA -- responsible for campaigns such as the "Hello Boys" Wonderbra campaign with Eva Herzigova -- offered to send...

UFOs Gone Wild, Men From Mars Visit MexicoCharles R. SmithThursday, May 13, 2004 The Mexican Air Force released a recent video of unidentified flying objects. A Mexican Air Force surveillance aircraft searching for drug runners spotted the UFOs, which were invisible to the naked eye. The UFOs were only visible on a special infrared camera. Journalist and long time UFO supporter Jamie Maussan announced that the objects were real and "intelligent." The UFOs reportedly changed direction and surrounded the plane chasing them. The Mexican Defense ministry confirmed to Reuters it had provided the video to Maussan. The video was...