Optical camouflage may just be possible now
Do you know what is common between a recently taken patent in the field of nanotechnology and a publication on animal behaviour in the journal Science, a little while ago? A report in January 2006 from the Interfax News Agency, Russia, which some greeted with enthusiasm and others dismissed with scorn, noted that Oleg Gadomsky from the Department of Quantum and Optical Electronics of the Ulyanovsk State University in Russia has patented a method of making things invisible by optical camouflage. Gadomsky had been long experimenting on nanoparticles of gold. He now claims to have invented a sub-micron stratum of microscopic, colloidal gold particles that makes an object placed behind it invisible to an observer. The scientist believes that though only static objects can be made invisible for the time being, but soon it will be possible to create a cap of darkness and a magic cloak like Harry Potter's.
Equally amazing is a report in the March 2005 issue of Science. Written by researchers of the University of California, usa, the report talks about an octopus that looks like a sea monster scooting along the sea floor on two legs in the tropical waters of Indonesia and Australia. There is also a film by us film film maker Bob Cranston that shows an Indonesian coconut octopus tiptoeing backwards along the ocean bottom on its two legs, six of its arms wrapped tightly around its body. Normally, an octopus crawls over the ocean floor, pushing on its eight arms, or jets backwards through the water. The octopus's bipedal movement is a neat trick to avoid predators. The creature moves away along a path, and this makes it seem stationary to its predators.
A desire long coveted Only time will show if humankind spurred on by experiments such as those of Gadomsky will be able to acquire powers of invisibility. But many animals seem to have mastered the power since yore. Camouflage (technically, cryptic colouration)