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We may soon use lasers to redirect lightning strikes
If there's one thing you should know about Engadget, it's that we absolutely love lasers. And thanks to the University of Arizona and University of Central Florida, our favorite pulsating form of light might soon find a much less destructive purpose, than say on Navy ships, anti-missile airliners and X-Men goggles. Instead of using a lightning rod to transport the average bolt of lightning (and its 1 billion joules of energy) safely into the ground, researchers believe that by using specially designed laser beams, the path of Zeus' thunderbolt can be redirected entirely. Lasers, when traveling through air, leave an ionized gas (plasma) with little to no electric charge. And since lightning travels in the path of least resistance, its charge would theoretically be given a new course. To accomplish such a feat, two different lasers must work together to form what's known as an "externally refuelled optical filament." The first, lower-power beam cuts through the atmosphere, while the second, higher-power beam "refuels" the other so that it doesn't lose focus. What's the catch? So far, those in white coats have only produced a working plasma that's seven feet long since the team started creating curved laser beams in 2009. But refined, this technology could offer much more efficient lightning protection. Who knows, we might be one step closer to harvesting the power of thunderstorms.
Curiosity rover warms up its laser with basaltic rock blast
Intrepid 6-wheeler Curiosity perhaps protested too much when it tweeted "Yes, I've got a laser beam attached to my head. I'm not ill tempered; I zapped a rock for science." NASA turned the rover's high-powered laser loose with 30 pulses of a million watts each, reducing a thin layer of the chosen stone, dubbed N165 "Coronation," to plasma. The resulting spectrum was then analyzed by the on-board "ChemCam" to determine its composition, and the US/French team who developed the system said it's working even better on Mars than it did on terra firma. The results are now being studied, but if we had a laser beam on another planet, we'd be firing it all over the place -- in the name of "science," of course.
NIF sets record with 500 TW laser shot, lab-based nuclear fusion not far behind
In an effort to recreate the fusion reaction that occurs in start formation, the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, CA has been building up to some extremely powerful laser shots. Back in March, researchers fired off 411 terawatts, and we know that kind of power doesn't come cheap. NIF's latest test shot, fired July 5th, set a new record with 192 lasers producing more than 500 trillion watts of peak power and 1.85 MJ of ultraviolet laser light. Mind you, that's more than a thousand times more energy than the United States uses at any given moment, not to mention a hundred times more power than other lasers can fire consistently. More record-setting shots are sure to come, and in addition to enabling research on harnessing nuclear fusion, NIF's mega-lasers are helping inform the design of new laser facilities being built in China, Japan, Russia, France and the UK.
Buckeyes to fire 500 trillion watt laser May 15th in a short, cheap burst
High-energy laser fusion experiments evoke extreme numbers -- not only in power but also in greenbacks. Sure, the current champ at the National Ignition facility in Livermore, CA can pump out a 411 trillion watt pulse, but at what price? A taxpayer-busting $200,000 per shot, with a $4 billion original construction cost. Compared to that, the new Ohio State University's 500 trillion watt model seems bargain-basement, built with a mere $6 million grant from the US Department of Energy. Admittedly, that paltry sum get you a much shorter burst, lasting 20 picoseconds compared to the NIF's several nanoseconds. But with the ability to fire 100 or more times per day, instead of just once like it's pricier kin, Ohio State will be able to assist the NIF with their fusion experiments, while also carrying on its own science, like simulating star formation. And money aside, the possibility of unlimited fusion-powered energy is always a noble goal, no?
World's first two-megajoule ultraviolet laser fired in California: no, you can't buy one
The Wolverines may have concocted the "most intense" laser in the universe back in '08, but it's a group of grinners at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, California that can now lay claim to firing the planet's first two-megajoule ultraviolet laser. Earlier this week, a 1.875-megajoule shot was fired into the target chamber, but it broke the two-dot-oh barrier after passing through the final focusing lens. Reportedly, this matters for more than just bragging rights, as scientists have long since sought to get past 'ignition' in order to "coax fusion energy from a tiny frozen fuel pellet." If we had to guess, we'd say both Nerf and Mattel are somehow trying to commercialize this thing prior to the holidays. (And yeah, we hope they're successful.)
Inhabitat's Week in Green: electric taxis, paper robots and a cathedral of 55,000 LEDs
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. This week Inhabitat saw the light as we reported on several spellbinding new projects around the world -- including an incredible cathedral made from 55,000 LEDs and a glowing prefab pod building modeled after the genetic structure of plankton. We also showcased a luminous forest of thousands of "Frozen Trees" and a high-flying F-Light made from a recycled airplane, and also reported on Toshiba expanding its line of LEDs. Meanwhile, as the lights fire up Lucas Oil Stadium we shared seven ways Super Bowl 46 is going green, took a look at the first organic concessions ever to offered at a Super Bowl, and got things cooking with six delicious recipes for game time snacksEco transportation also blasted off from the starting line as London's first zero-emission electric taxis hit the streets, and Stanford unveiled plans for electrified roads that automatically charge EVs. We also saw Scotland launch the world's first hybrid sea-going ferries, while Agence 360 did cyclists a favor by designing a nifty ultra-compact foldable bike helmet. Meanwhile, Chevrolet announced plans to put environmental impact stickers on all of their cars by 2013, the sun-powered solarGT car set off on a race across the United States, and we brought you a gorgeous set of long-exposure photos that make speeding trains look like laser beams.In other news, renewable energy was a hot topic this week as researchers at MIT found a way to make solar panels from grass clippings, another team of scientists developed a hip-hop powered biomedical sensor and Britain mulled plans to install a new breed of radioactive waste-recycling nuclear reactors that could power the UK for 500 years. We also brought you several fun designs for aspiring little builders - a set of awesome paper robots and an industrial workbench for tots. Finally, since Valentine's day is around the corner we shared 10 red-hot gifts, along with 14 sexy sustainable skivvies.
Researchers build world's smallest steam engine that could
Wanna create your very own microscopic steam engine? Just take a colloid particle, put it in water, and add a laser. That's a CliffsNotes version of what a group of German researchers recently did to create the world's smallest steam engine. To pull it off, engineers from the University of Stuttgart and Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems tweaked the traditional approach introduced by Robert Stirling nearly 200 years ago. In Stirling's model, gas within a cylindrical tube is alternately heated and cooled, allowing it to expand and push an attached piston. Professor Clemens Bechinger and his team, however, decided to downsize this system by replacing the piston with a laser beam, and the cylinder's working gas with a single colloid bead that floats in water and measures just three thousandths of a millimeter in size. The laser's optical field limits the bead's range of motion, which can be easily observed with a microscope, since the plastic particle is about 10,000 times larger than an atom. Because the beam varies in intensity, it effectively acts upon the particle in the same way that heat compresses and expands gas molecules in Stirling's model. The bead, in turn, does work on the optical field, with its effects balanced by an outside heat source. The system's architects admit that their engine tends to "sputter" at times, but insist that its mere development shows that "there are no thermodynamic obstacles" to production. Read more about the invention and its potential implications in the full press release, after the break.
NASA developing tractor beams, no plans for Death Star... yet (video)
Fully functional LightSabre aside, a tractor beam has to be high on most geek wish-lists; lucky for you NASA has started working on one. Before you drop your sandwich (or whatever that object in your left hand is), this won't be for sucking up star cruisers, but the more modest task of sample and space dust collection. The basic concept has already been proven, but now NASA's Office of the Chief Technologist has given boffins $100,000 to make the dream a reality. Three potential methods are already on the table, which in lay-terms resemble laser tweezers, a light vortex and a conceptual rippling beam. Once developed, it could signal the end of traditional mechanical sample collecting -- and just plain luck -- consigning robotic arms to the history books. Check the video after the break for science-tastic mock up of how it might work.
Australian researchers trap tiny particles in tiny tractor beam
Lasers. Is there anything they can't do? The latest addition to the 50-year-old technology's bag of tricks comes courtesy of a team of researchers from the Australian National University, who've managed to create a laser beam that effectively functions as a tiny tractor beam. The key, it seems, is that the laser beam is hollow, which allows tiny particles to be trapped in what the researchers describe as a "dark core," which in turn causes the particles to be pushed along the beam by an effect known as the "photophoretic force." As you might expect, that only works on very tiny particles, but the researchers are able to move them as far as one and a half meters, and they say that the technology could have a number of practical applications, including directing and clustering nano-particles in the air, and even transporting dangerous substances and microbes -- in small amounts, of course. [Thanks, Lester]
Super-slim laser beams promise to boost optical disc capacity
Researchers at Japan's Kyoto University have recently announced a breakthrough method for shaping laser beams that could result in optical disc capacities up to ten times higher than what's current available from state-of-the-art HD DVD and Blu-ray discs. Using several layers of so-called photonic crystals incorporated into a small semiconductor chip, the researchers were able to manipulate a light beam's constituent photons in such a way that the resulting laser output could be shaped into a number of exotic beam patterns -- such as hollow beams, concentric hollow beams, and most importantly for optical disc capacity, solid beams with diameters much smaller than had been previously achievable. The best part about this technology is that the narrow beams can be formed without changing the wavelength of the laser, meaning that the technique could theoretically be applied to existing blue lasers, enabling next-gen optical discs to hold hundreds of gigabytes worth of data. Or, to put this in layman's terms, the $1,000 BD-P1000 you're planning on buying will now be, like, totally obsolete before you even tear open the box.
Air Force pushing for ground-based, satellite-killing lasers
In a proposal that would surely bring a tear to the late Ronald Reagan's eye, Air Force officials are attempting to co-opt $5.7 million from the 2007 budget for developing high-energy lasers that could be used to destroy enemy satellites (because, you know, al Qaeda is launching birds left and right). So far a subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee has "shot down" the program, which would build on a 1997 Pentagon study of a two-million-watt laser, although the full committee could reinstate the provision following analysis of the entire bill. While certain military interests have pushed for anti-satellite weapons since the Cold War, concern over the space junk that destroyed sats would create has kept the international community from serious pursuit of any "Star Wars"-like programs. Although we're always keen on new military tech (hey, it gives us something to write about), we're gonna have to side with the Doubting Thomases on this one, because the impending "ROBO-ONE in the Space" satellite is simply too important to risk even a single stray laser strike.
