The Blackest Paint on Earth Will Harvest Sunlight

California researchers have announced a major breakthrough in bleak: They've invented the blackest paint in the world, and it just might save us all. Because of its unrivaled ability to absorb light, the paint could aid in developing a new breed of powerful solar power plants.

Just as light is trapped forever in the dark and terrible abyss of a black hole, the paint absorbs the sun's rays, trapping heat that's used to steam-power turbines. Orange literally is the new black, and it's damn black indeed.

Ah, but man has long felt seductive power of the dark. Let us now salute achievements in the field of blackness.

1965 - Young British guitarist Tommy Iommi loses two fingertips on his guitar fretting hand in a horrific machinery accident. To keep playing he fashions prosthetic tips, invents lighter strings, and drops his tuning. Iommi’s brutal response provides invaluable early evidence of the benefits of blackness with his heavy sound: Black Sabbath.

1984 - Spinal Tap releases infamous black mirror cover to Smell the Glove LP. “It’s like, how much more black could this be?” asks lead guitarists and probably amateur physicist Nigel Tufnel, before positing the answer: “None. None more black.” Widely regarded as the starting pistol in the ensuing arms race for dark domination.

2004 - Metallica releases documentary Some Kind of Monster, exploring the darkness of dysfunctional relationships, records God awful St. Anger album. Critics take note of delicate balancing act between channeling blackness into power riffs and “going full bitch.”

2006 - Metalocalypse airs first episode. The show brings advanced level blackness to its widest audience yet. Dethklok resurrects Finish lake troll.

2009 - Japanese nanotechnologists announce they've created "ultrablack," which absorbs as much as 99 percent of all light wavelengths that can be absorbed. Scientists say it's the closest anyone has come to the theorized black body, a state of perfect absorption. Pretty metal, Japan.

2010 - Ronnie James Dio leaves this plane of existence — "dies," to you and me, but likely is just going to take over Hell. Honored for pioneering theories on the metal properties of inverting ring, middle finger, and thumb in relation to remaining two digits. Also known as The Sign of the Horns.

2014 - "Vantablack" is unleashed. Glorious pool of shadows described by scientists as a grouping of incredibly thin nanotubes so tiny that light cannot pass through them. Slayer, inexplicably, has yet to commission concert shirts of the material.

2015 - University of California San Diego researchers use blackest paint on the planet to develop next generation solar power plants. Blackness saves, consumes, mankind.