Scientists Arthur Ashkin from the U.S.-based Bell Labs, Gérard Mourou from École Polytechnique in France, and Donna Strickland from the University of Waterloo in Canada shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for their pioneering work in laser physics. Strickland is the third female physics laureate ever, after Maria…
We’re up for a big week in the news, folks. There’s a lot going to happen, from Apple’s big September 12th announcement event to the notably less fun Hurricane Florence, which is currently projected to barrel into the East Coast at a minimum Category 3 status or possibly even worse before the weekend. As the president…
Over-the-top Nerf battles are a fun and (mostly) painless way to determine who in the office has to buy the donuts this week. What’s not so fun is having to hunt down every last missing dart afterwards. Hasbro’s eliminated that hassle with its new Laser Ops Pro blasters; an updated version of laser tag that might feel…
As the U.S. prepares for war in space, China’s bringing the space war home. Its ZKZM-500 laser assault rifle is reportedly capable of hitting a target from a kilometer away, igniting flammable objects, and burning through human skin. And it’s ready for production, the researchers behind the project claim.
When discussing a big-screen TV, size is bound to be the primary topic of conversation, but with Hisense’s 100-inch Ultra HD Laser TV, bigness approaches a thought-terminating cliche—one I have been happy to let take over my puny mind.
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.
