An enormous laser targeted for shutdown by proposed federal budget cuts has just done some record-breaking science in order to understand the centers of faraway exoplanets that scientists call “super-Earths.”
Citizens and visitors to the city of Daye in China’s Hubei province have a new incentive to pay attention to traffic signals: if they don’t, they can get sprayed with water.
Scientists have used the same technology that brought us time crystals to create a room-temperature maser—a microwave laser—that overcomes many of masers’ past problems.
The US Air Force’s scientific research wing is giving Lockheed Martin $26.3 million “for the design, development, and production of a high power fiber laser,” which it expects to start testing on a tactical fighter jet in four years. Sounds cool and certainly futuristic, but the jury’s still out on whether these…
Did you know a cheap red laser pointer is good for more than just annoying people at a movie theater? As YouTube’s Styropyro, aka Drake Anthony, demonstrates, by focusing the beam you can actually use it to lift and levitate tiny specs of diamond dust, similar to how Star Trek’s tractor beams seemingly work.
Even if you haven’t seen any James Bond films, you’re probably aware that the space laser battle depicted in Moonraker ranks among the stupidest scenes in the franchise’s history. But there’s a new laser gun in town that’s actually good and opening up for business. It is not a weapon.
You’re staring at the sky on a sunny day when you notice, in the corner of your eye, a transparent squiggle floating slowly across the blue. You try and focus on it, but it eludes your glance, refusing to be resolved. No matter where you look, the squiggle knows.
Wave a high-powered laser around fast enough, and the human eye will perceive an image in the light trail left behind. That’s how laser projectors that cost thousands of dollars work, but it’s also how this cheap, 3D-printed plastic contraption turns a simple laser pointer into a full-on light show.
Anyone with a color printer knows that selling replacement ink cartridges is the quickest way to become a millionaire. But what if your printer never needed a single drop of ink to produce color images at impossibly high resolutions? A new laser printer can already do that by etching microscopic patterns onto sheets…
If you thought the funky tie-dye Easter egg designs you created last weekend raised the bar, you’ve got about a year to try and top what Jiri Zemanek of the University of Prague came up with. His Easter eggs feature looped animated designs that look like a Spirograph has come to life.
Some SETI researchers believe the best way to detect aliens is to search the skies for their laser beams. In the largest survey of its kind, astronomers scanned 5,600 stars in search of these optical signals—and they found...absolutely nothing. Nada. Zilch. Here’s what that means to SETI and the ongoing hunt for alien…
While everyone complains about the fact that they don’t have a jetpack or a flying car yet, the military has patiently waited for its killer laser beams. Lockheed Martin says that it will hand off exactly that to the Army in the next few months.
Military bigwigs gathered in Orlando this week for the annual AirWarfare Symposium to discuss big plans for big weapons that do big damage. According to a report, the biggest unfunded project that U.S. Special Operations Command hopes to push through is a C-130 that’s equipped with a power laser weapon.
On Tuesday, an international team of scientists announced they successfully tested “Bivoj,” a high peak power laser named after a legendary Czech strongman—and boy, they really want you to know it’s really, really strong.
When it comes to cooling things in the lab, scientists have long found an experimental lower limit just above the theoretical coldest temperature. Well, a group of American scientists have now made things (lowers shades) ...even cooler.
This immersive laser beam installation seems like the perfect place to pop a pill, stare at some lights, cleanse yourself from sin, and, like, maybe even just leave your soul behind. The room is so huge and the lasers come from everywhere that it must be a hell of a trip. Like, you’re trapped inside a machine. Or the…
The best feature of this elaborate Lego Mindstorms miniature factory is how utterly useless it is in the grand scheme of things. As its name implies, the Papercube spends about three minutes diligently performing just a single task: making a tiny folded paper cube.
Wicked Lasers is known for its handheld lasers and flashlights that redefine what it means to be bright. A few years ago it released a flashlight that was intense enough to start a fire, and now the company has managed to dramatically shrink its design so you can easily bring it the next time you go camping and leave…
Lasers are behind so much of our cutting-edge technology. Now scientists at the University of Michigan have successfully shown that is possible to build a working laser with blood, the better to spot tumors in the human body.
For the upcoming ‘Hacked on Classics’ show being held as part of the Brighton Digital Festival in the UK this month, hacker Seb Lee-Delisle modified the classic NES’ Zapper accessory with LEDs, a green laser, the smoke-generating parts from an e-cigarette, and a small blower to create the convincing effect of a…
