Get an Invisibility Cloak. Seriously.

Well, maybe not a real invisibility cloak—sorry Harry Potter fans—but a team of scientists at MIT's  SMART Centre are on their way to producing materials that mimic actual invisibility.

Like something straight out of an H.G. Wells novel, scientists are using materials to refract light around an object using blocks of calcite crystal. I could get into the science of the process—it involves meta-materials and negative refract indexes—but I'll be honest: I'm not sure I fully get it. (Click here for a full scientific rundown.)

"Part of the pink object is rendered invisbile to the naked eye under the calcite-based invisibility cloak."

What I can talk about is what it does. Scientists are able to hide small objects, such as paper clips and pins, in calcite blocks, completely naked to the human eye. The coolest part is the potential of the new technology: scientists say they can hide any object, depending on the size of the calcite crystals they use.

"The wedge measuring 38mm x 10mm x 2mm visible to the naked eye."

Shout out to the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART Centre) and the University of Birmingham, Imperial College, London and Technical University of Denmark for developing the technology.

The best part? The whole thing only costs $1,000 dollars, but they're not on the market just yet.

Image credit: Baile Zhang and G. Barbastathis/SMART Centre.