DS2/SG2 - It's a gun Jim but not as we know it

This is off topic ish - but of relevance to the 'reality freaks' out
there,
perhaps - applicable to the DirtGrunt games, when we will have small
enough
lasers...

--
This is a report in the Times newspaper, today 30th October 1997.
I had to check the date several times just to be sure it is not April
the 
1st or something!!

By Robert Uhlig, Technology Correspondent

AN American inventor has boldly gone where no other weapons maker has
been 
before. Inspired by Star Trek, Hans Eric Herr, a Californian, has
developed 
a hand-held laser gun that can shock, stun and kill.

Like the phaser used in the science-fiction series, the device developed
by 
Mr Herr bombards human targets with electrical pulses to stun
painlessly, 
induce painful convulsions or even prompt a heart attack.

Less sophisticated stun weapons have already been made, but these use 
either wires or a jet of water to make contact with the victim and
transmit 
electrical stun pulses of up to 10,000 volts.

The liquid system often spills into droplets and the wire version,
called a 
taser, has to be reloaded for each use.

The phaser gun patented by Mr Herr, of San Diego, has none of these 
disadvantages and most of the attributes of Captain Kirk and Spock's 
intergalactic weapon of choice.

It uses an intense laser beam of ultraviolet light to create a plasma 
channel - an electrically-charged air-beam - along which it discharges a

precise electrical current to immobolise its victim.

The multiple-shot phaser evades legal restrictions on laser weapons
because 
it uses a wavelength of light that would take several minutes to blind. 
According to a report in New Scientist, the phaser can penetrate
clothing 
and has a range of more than 300ft.

However, despite having the characteristics of Star Trek phasers, Mr
Herr's 
invention has a crucial handicap. Using current technology, the smallest

lasers needed to power the gun are the size of a kitchen table.

Nevertheless, Mr Herr is confident that there are ways to make his
stunning 
invention smaller, and probably more powerful. Prof Anthony Bell, an
expert 
on laser-produced plasmas at Imperial College, London, supported Mr
Herr's 
assertion that a holster-sized phaser is not far off.

"Technology is developing so rapidly that given a few years you might
have 
something that is quite portable," he said. "There's nothing here I
would 
rule out."

--
sincerely
tim jones
--
Reality is for those who can't cope with Science Fiction.