Texas scientist makes strands of 'invisibility cloak'

Rick Perry was probably looking for a way to disappear during his ugly debate showing Wednesday, and doing so may be closer than he thinks.

A physicist at the University of Texas Dallas has successfully created the elusive invisibility cloak immortalized in the pages of Harry Potter.

And you don’t have to go to Hogwarts to get it.

Scroll down for video



Now you see it: The 'invisibility cloak' was demonstrated in the University of Texas lab of Ali Aliev

Now you don't: The 'cloak' uses carbon nanotubes, which resemble strands of thread

Ali Aliev, the researcher behind the feat, said he was able to make the cloak using carbon nanotubes, which look like thin strands of thread.



Cringe-worthy: Presidential candidate Rick Perry could have used an invisibility cloak Wednesday night

Mr Aliev told MSNBC: "We really can hide objects. ... We can switch for a short moment and make it disappear.’

In a video posted to YouTube, the strands are seen appearing and disappearing during a demonstration in Mr Aliev’s lab.

He told the network: 'It's interesting for ordinary people, because usually [scientists] show something microsized under some microscope.

'But here, in real time, real objects [were] disappearing.'

In Sweden, scientists are working on an invisibility cloak which could protect tanks from heat seeking missiles.

The new technology has scanners to read nearby buildings and terrain and can reproduce their pattern of hot and cold on panels on the hull of the vehicle.

An infrared image is then produced, allowing the machine to blend into its environment and ultimately tricking the enemy into thinking it might be a car or even a cow.

From fiction to fact? Harry Potter wears his invisibility cloak