A Practical Way to Make Invisibility Cloaks

A new printing method makes it possible to produce large sheets of metamaterials, a new class of materials designed to interact with light in ways no natural materials can. For several years, researchers working on these materials have promised invisibility cloaks. Metamaterials that interact with visible light have previously not been made in pieces larger than hundreds of micrometers. Metamaterials are made up of intricately patterned layers, often of metals. Rogers has developed a stamp-based printing method for generating large pieces of one of the most promising types of metamaterial, which can make near-infrared light bend the "wrong" way when it passes through. Materials with this so-called negative index of refraction are particularly promising for making superlenses, night-vision invisibility cloaks, and sophisticated waveguides for telecommunications.he Illinois group starts by molding a hard plastic stamp that's covered with a raised fishnet pattern. The stamp is then placed in an evaporation chamber and coated with a sacrificial layer, followed by alternating layers of the metamaterial ingredients—silver and magnesium fluoride—to form a layered mesh on the stamp. The stamp is then placed on a sheet of glass or flexible plastic and the sacrificial layer is etched away.

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/37720/page2/

TR10: Neuron Control

Karl Deisseroth's genetically engineered "light switch," which lets scientists turn selected parts of the brain on and off. It's control your neural cells with flashes of a light. In Deisseroth's psychiatry practice at the Stanford Medical Center, Deisseroth sometime treats patients who can't walk, talk, or eat. Intensive treatments, s can literally save such patients' lives, but often at the cost of memory loss, and other serious side effects. Deisseroth, who is both a physician and a bioengineer do things better ways was to control the neural cels.




http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?ch=specialsections&sc=emerging&id=18289

Social Search, without a Social Network

"The company added social features that will let your friends help determine what ranks high in the search results you see. The approach requires Google to know the social connections of its users something that so far is not a core feature of the company's products or uppermost in the minds of people using them". Google's new social tool is the +1 button, which it wants you to click to signal which search results and Web pages you appreciate. If you use this tool your life for searching would be easier.

http://www.technologyreview.com/web/37241/?mod=chthumb