Pssst, over here

If this isn't just about the coolest possible scientific breakthrough in recent memory:

WASHINGTON - Scientists are boldly going where only fiction has gone before — to develop a Cloak of Invisibility. It isn't quite ready to hide a Romulan space ship from Capt. James T. Kirk or to disguise Harry Potter, but it is a significant start and could show the way to more sophisticated designs.

In this first successful experiment, researchers from the United States and England were able to cloak a copper cylinder.

It's like a mirage, where heat causes the bending of light rays and cloaks the road ahead behind an image of the sky.

[. . .]

Cloaking used special materials to deflect radar or light or other waves around an object, like water flowing around a smooth rock in a stream. It differs from stealth technology, which does not make an aircraft invisible but reduces the cross-section available to radar, making it hard to track.

The new work points the way for an improved version that could hide people and objects from visible light.

Come on, 'fess up. You've imagined what you would do if you were invisible. We all have. Hang out in the women's shower room, or the men's, as the case may be. Find out what your bosses are talking about. Be present at one of those meetings between Bush and Rumsfield. Learn what your friends really say about you when they think you won't find out. I hate to admit it, but I'd probably spend at least a few days messing with people: sitting at their tables and moving their plates and glasses around when they weren't looking, sitting behind them at the theater and giggling, turning the lights on and off in their living rooms. Personal interaction is so important, don't you think?