Patrick Priebe of Laser Gadgets builds custom props with a little something extra, from steampunk laser guns that can really burn to a crossbow that fires buzz saw blades. Here he adds his laser magic to an Iron Man-style gauntlet, arming it with enough power to pop a balloon.

What happens when you ignite a firecracker inside a transparent balloon? YouTube user WorldScott sets his blue laser to the task, and amazingly, the balloon makes it out intact.

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.

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.

A recent scientific discovery reveals a remarkable similarity between vampires and diamonds - other than the fact that they both seem, currently, to be a girl's best friend.

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. …

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.

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.

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.

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.