Learned scientific articles generally don't make a big splash in the world beyond academe. Many of us out here can't understand them, and we're much too busy and distracted to bother trying. But two articles in this month's issue of the journal Science have made headlines that are capturing even children's attention. British and U.S. researchers, it appears, are close to perfecting new kinds of materials that could be thrown or draped over an object to render it invisible.
Allowing for time to smooth out glitches, it could be less than two years before the world -- well, all right, the world's militaries -- have invisibility cloaks not essentially different from the ones used by Harry Potter and by the Romulans and Klingons of "Star Trek." Harry's, you may recall, was a person-size garment that he used to get about Hogwarts School after lights-out. In "Star Trek," the cloaking device was typically used to screen larger objects, such as a spacecraft.
Presumably any size or shape is feasible. A few tweaks might even permit a version of the fabled helmet of darkness worn by Hermes, messenger of the gods in Greek myth. Once again, science catches up to fantasy.