Most powerful laser ever created can heat matter to over 3.6 million…

This newly created X-ray laser is just unimaginably powerful. It's a billion times brighter than any previous X-ray source, and it can probe hot dense matter at nearly four million degrees. This laser could unlock the secrets of the Sun.

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Scientists are working on a "tractor beam" that could recover astronauts …

It's the interstellar version of a man overboard — an astronaut, thrown from his spacecraft, drifting helplessly into space. Until recently, safety measures to account for such a situation have been somewhat limited.

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Genetically engineered cell becomes world's first living laser

It looks like we're one step closer to having laser vision (or at least, laser-based diagnostic and therapeutic techniques). Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston have genetically engineered the world's first "living laser." That's right - a living cell can shoot laser light. …

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Lasers reveal exactly how guitars create music

When you play a stringed instrument, the strings vibrate against the soundboard, amplifying the sound created by the string. The vibrations involved are tiny, as little as a millionth of a meter, and that's why researchers got out their lasers.

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Powerful next generation lasers get us one step closer to creating…

The Extreme Light Infrastructure is a new project that will build three incredibly powerful new lasers. Capable of creating energy pulses 20 times more powerful than anything before, these new lasers could help us probe the world of weird physics.

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Laser blasts could unlock secrets of practical superconductors

Take an ordinary, non-superconducting material and hit it with light, and its electrons suddenly reorganize into a resistance-free, superconducting arrangement. This only works at extremely low temperatures, but it could help us solve the riddle of practical superconductors.

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Imitation black hole created on Earth using lasers and pure glass

Yes, we've managed to create a black hole...or at least the optical equivalent of a black hole's extreme, light-trapping properties thanks to an ingenious combination of lasers and glass. Best of all, it offers proof of Stephen Hawking's famous radiation.

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