It strikes me as being akin to the fabled ice dagger, but NewScientist (31 August 2019) doesn’t go there:
Spies and soldiers might soon be able to go behind enemy lines using a parachute or glider made from a polymer that vanishes on exposure to sunlight. …
[Paul Kohl of the Georgia Institute of Technology and his team] began with polymers that have a low ceiling temperature, which is the point at which the key bonds holding the substance together begin to break.
Lots of polymers break down slowly when they reach this temperature because many bonds have to be broken. But Kohl designed his material so that as soon as one bond breaks the whole thing rapidly unzips. …
Sunlight or artificial light can trigger the material to go poof. Or, in true spy style, a small light emitting diode can be placed inside a device to trigger the self-destruct process on demand. All that’s left behind is a residue and a faint smell, which Kohl says are from the additives that control the rigidity of the material.
While this particular material may prove inapplicable in a murder, cousins of it might be stiff enough to function as a knife, and perhaps it’d dissolve in the presence of blood. This team appears to be funded by the military, and so the fixation on battlefield applications. But how about a mystery assassination of an adversary leader?
Or even someone of your own country you don’t like?
