In The Guardian today, news of a new laser being developed at Aldermaston.
The 'Orion' project will be, it claims, the worlds most powerful laser. It will be used to recreate extreme temperature environments, heating material fragments up to 3 million degrees C. Due to come online in 2010, it will have over 100 AWE scientists working on projects involving it.
Sounds a real cutting edge development, and nothing like my final year laser Muzzle Velocity Measurement System, (MVMS ®), which only had a range of 1 kilometre, (using a collimator), with the only heating ability being that of eye damage if you didn't wear protection. But then, it was powered by a PP3 battery, and pretty much held together with sticky-back plastic and string 
