I read two articles recently that I thought were awesome, and that have direct application on the science of our story: functional invisibility cloaks and self-healing armor. I don’t want to steal too much thunder from the Science section posts that will cover how Minerva will use this tech, but allow me to explain briefly what this current advance in tech entails.
The invisibility cloak isn’t yet as awesome as it sounds. It currently only cloaks a two dimensional object from microwaves (lower frequency than visible light), but it does do that perfectly, without any distortions or reflections, even at the edges of the field. Says the researcher:
“We built the cloak, and it worked. It split light into two waves which traveled around an object in the center and re-emerged as the single wave with minimal loss due to reflections.”
That’s pretty nifty. If this worked on a 3D object with light from the visible spectrum, you really would be unable to tell that anything was there. Light would simply go around it . If you could coat a tank in this, or an airplane, or a soldier, it could potentially be very effective. Unless, of course, you couldn’t see yourself or your team mates, or if the cloaking interrupted radio frequencies too, essentially cutting you off completely from the rest of the world. Hopefully you can find the off switch without seeing it 
The self-healing material is also pretty sweet. The researchers have a strong, flexible and conductive material that, when cut, can be easily fused back together with a little light, or even simply pressure.
To demonstrate that both the mechanical and the electrical properties of the material could be repeatedly restored to their original values after the material had been damaged and healed, the researchers cut the polymer completely through with a scalpel. After pressing the cut edges together gently for 15 seconds, the researchers found the sample went on to regain 98% of its original conductivity.
This polymer could be cut and fused back together over and over again without losing it’s properties.
If it were possible to make a skin like this part of the layers of an armor, maybe even with an external invisibility layer, you could make some really sweet armored units.
More than this I won’t say, because I don’t want to spoil future things. Do let me know what you think. Comment, post, like, etc. And go over to the Rewards and Giveaway section to enter to win a signed poster of either of the comic covers, and to win a free upgrade to Windows 8 (sorry non-Windows users).
I’ll be excited about the invisibility cloak when I don’t need to carry a nuclear generator to power it. I’m curious though, how can they test it on a 2D object? 2D objects can’t physically exist in our 3D reality… Didn’t those scientists have to read Flatlands in Geometry?
Self-healing armor would be cool though. I think it’s even cooler that it only regains 98% of its integrity when it heals. If it healed back to full with just some TLC, that would be boring. The coolest stuff in Star Trek always happens when the ship is damaged and they have to improvise. Of course, if something penetrates your armor, you have to worry about internal systems damage-even if the armor itself heals completely. A lucky shot could take out a servo in your knee, for instance, and leave you walking like Captain Hook with no visible, external damage….