Blacker Than Black is the New Black

Art directors/skinny fashion folks/Calvin Klein will be weeping with delight when they learn that scientists have come up with a new fabric that will make what we previously thought was black look positively gray. Top brains at Norfolk State University in Virginia have worked out how to make a "metamaterial" that is perfectly black, and reflects none, or virtually none, of the light that lands on it.

For those who might be thinking of hunkering down and starting to fashion things from the metamaterial, it's made of silver wires 35 nanometres in diameter, embedded in 1cm squares of aluminum oxide, 51 micrometres thick.

Of course, even if you do find something to cut it with, you won't really be able to see what you're working with. Oh, and the tech is expected to find its way to stealth planes rather than Milan's runways -- at least for now. But we all know that military technology has that trickle-down effect, so expect to see the trendsetters in it in due course. Or rather not to see them.