It's hard to say if boffins at Oxford University got their inspiration from
Nimoy and Co., but one thing's for sure: they aren't joking about the creation of transparent aluminum. In what can only be described as a breakthrough for the ages, a team of mad scientists across the way have created "a completely new state of matter nobody has seen before" by blasting aluminum walls (around one-inch thick) with brief pulses of soft
X-ray light, each of which is "more powerful than the output of a power plant that provides electricity to a whole city." For approximately 40 femtoseconds, an "invisible effect" is seen, giving the gurus hope that their experiment could lead to new studies in exotic states of matter. For a taste of exactly what we mean, feel free to voice command your PC to jump past the break. Or use the keyboard, if you're feeling quaint.
