RANDOM SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGHS DEPT.
Shield your eyes from the darkness
By Rick Weiss
Washington Post

  Black is getting blacker. Researchers in New York reported this month that they have created a paper-thin material that absorbs 99.955 percent of the light that hits it, making it by far the darkest substance ever made — about 30 times as dark as the government's current standard for blackest black.
  The material, made of hollow fibers, is a Roach Motel for photons — light checks in, but it never checks out. By voraciously sucking up all surrounding illumination, it can give those who gaze on it a dizzying sensation of nothingness.
  “It’s very deep, like in a forest on the darkest night,” said Shawn-Yu Lin, a scientist who helped create the material at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. “Nothing comes back to you. It’s very, very, very dark.”
  But scientists are not satisfied. Using other new materials, some are trying to manufacture rudimentary Harry Potter-like cloaks that make objects inside of them literally invisible under the right conditions — the pinnacle of stealthy technology.
  Military officials were among the first to call after a description of the work appeared in this month's issue of the journal Nano Letters, Lin said in an interview. Substances that absorb every smidgeon of incoming vis­ible light could complement existing stealth coatings that absorb radar waves, Lin said.
  He and others emphasized, how­ever, that there are peaceful and more immediate applications for the black­est stuff on Earth.
  Solar panels coated with it would be much more efficient than those coated with conventional black paint, which reflects 5 percent or more of incoming light. Telescopes lined with it would sop up random flecks of in­cident light, providing a blacker back­ground to detect faint stars.
  And a wide array of heat detectors and energy-measuring devices, in­cluding climate-tracking equipment on satellites, would become far more accurate than they are today if they were coated with energy-grabbing su­perblack.

Yeah I thought this was a cool article myself, but I don't know if I like the idea of military getting in on this. I can see it now, an invisible night army 

Karma point for coolness 

This is definitely a must-have for the Dark Side of my wardrobe. 

I wonder if a stealth suit made of this material would be helpful ghost hunting?

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