Giant laser beams in space. Pft. Can you say Death Star? Whilst laser-concentrated solar power over standard solar power has it’s benefits, missing by just a few degrees could cause North Korea to go up in smoke. I hop these boffins know what they’re doing… With the potential to be snapped onto existing satelites in orbit, the ultra-green laser/solar military/eco-friendly saviour/destructor apocalyptic killing/saving machines look pretty fancy, with pros and cons circling around.

According to a report out of Tokyo, the team is working on Space-based solar power systems which can collect sunlight in space and convert it into laser light, which is then transmitted to Earth and used for electricity… or to power a massive Death-Ray. The project works by storing sunlight-based energy in plate made from a sintered powder of metals like chromium and neodymium. When weak laser light is shined onto the plate, the stored energy is transferred to the laser where its strength is amplified by a factor of four. In one test, a 0.5-watt laser was amplified to 180-watts by the plates.

I feel a major rant coming on, so my advice is to run. Run for cover, subscribe to the feed, keep on running and grab a sandwich. Take a left at the roundabout and you’ll see a sign welcoming you to Texas. Keep on going and don’t look back till you hit the dunkin’ donuts store on the right then stop for a loo break.

I’m all for anti-matter, but keeping it safe (just like a laser beam, eh?) is a bit of a challenge, besides finding it. Whilst you consider that a single gram of anti-matter contains the same amount of energy as a 20-kiloton nuclear bomb (correct me if I’m wrong, but kiloton is the millitary way of describing 1,000 metric tonnes of standard TNT) and way it up to the potential destructive power of the Japanese TBC Deathstar - the future of the earth seems in mortal peril. Go figure. My physics teacher has been planting all these funny ideas into my head and Dan Brown isn’t exactly helping. The way we’re converting useful, concentrated energy into useless ’spread out’ energy. Black holes, big freezes, big rips, big crunches, big bounces, false vacuums, parallel universes and cosmic uncertainties are certainly turning this post from one of geeky warfare into a lifelong philosophy lesson, so I figure now’s the time to head to bed.

I got a lil’ carried away. Feelin’ kinda hyper today… First day back at school after a 6-week break! via EG. Oh - and excuse no blogging yesterday. Site was down.