X-ray specs coming soon

A team of Scottish scientists claim that they are close to developing X-ray spectacles that will give wearers 'super-human' vision, allowing them to see through clothing and inside suitcases.

The BBC reports that researchers at Glasgow University have developed so-called millimetre-wave scanners, which produce an image similar to an X-ray that can see through clothes.

According to the scientists, the scanners would emit terahertz radiation - ultra-high frequency beams of light - which bounce off the object being viewed and return to the spectacles to create a detailed image on the inside of the lens.

The waves, which would be fired through engineered crystals to create three-dimensional images, pass straight through 'flimsy' materials such as cloth, paper and plastics, but cannot penetrate denser material such as flesh or metal.