This laser goes HERCULES on our asses (with apologies to Meet the Spartans.)

The University of Michigan just announced the most powerful laser yet. Called HERCULES, it’s aptly all-caps because it packs 300 TERAWATTS OF POWER.

To give you an idea of what that means, Krushelnick, a UM physicist, claimed he “doesn’t know of another place in the universe that would have this intensity of light.” So cocksure for a human, huh. But don’t worry, we always go loco over anything with tera- in it.

The geeks at UM listed the possible uses: 1. Improved radiation treatment for cancer; 2. CREATING MATTER OUT OF NOTHING. (This one deserves to be all-caps.)

My own list would be:
1. Restarting Reagan’s Star Wars initiative.
2. Communicating with aliens by beaming it to the distant parts of the universe in Morse code fashion.
3. Vaporizing obnoxious human beings with a keychain laser pointer.
4. Um, I hope those depressed college kids at UM don’t have access to it.