Invisibility: fiction or reality?

H.G. Wells is long considered one of the grandfathers of speculative fiction. He wrote The Island of Dr. Moreau a century before bio-engineering tapped the genome. Other great future-oriented fiction classics of his were The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine. The former got the Tom Cruise treatment just a few years back.

Although these last two stories still seem very far into our collective future, one other book of Wells' seems to be getting a bit closer to reality: The Invisible Man. There is an article today in The Seattle Times entitled: Invisibility: Soon to be the new black - a clever title if you're a fashionista.

The science is very interesting: you basically steer light in different directions with advanced materials made out of carbon nanotubes. This gives you a black that reflects an extremely low percentage of visible light. There are existing problems to overcome like seeing out from behind this material...but the geniuses behind this technological advancement have a plan to get around them.

Soon, we may see invisibility cloaks on the market without needing access to the secret back hallway at Flourish and Blott's. The once far-fetched world of H.G. Wells' invisible man may come to pass in your lifetime. Only in this real world story, you'll have to cover yourself with material to become invisible. Unlike the surly character in the book, you'll still have visible skin underneath the fabric...it'll be the fabric itself that you won't be able to see.

Synthetic life lives?

For avid readers of biologically-bent speculative fiction, here is some interesting news on synthetic organisms. J. Craig Venter has been at the forefront of groundbreaking bio-science for years. He's in the thick of it again.

Going first across the finish line on the genome, Venter has steadily been pushing the envelope on the keys to life. Now his team has made a breakthrough in synthetic life. Very soon we may face a world with goofy new forms of life...or even unexpectedly dangerous ones. We all remember Crichton's Jurassic Park.

It's the H.G. Wells version of synthetic life that's really freaky. Wells was way ahead of his time. He wrote The Island of Dr. Moreau at the end the 19th century. It remains one of the most chilling stories about how science can head in the wrong direction. His speculative fiction probably gave lots of future Craig Venter's their ideas.