This is TRUE science: Harvard boffins fire up sizzling BACON LASER

A team of Harvard scientists has paved the way for a deadly laser pig weapon by demonstrating that, with a little encouragement, pig fat cells can be made to lase. According to MIT Technology Review, Seok Hyun Yun and Matjaž Humar stimulated spheres of fat inside porcine cells with an optical fibre, causing them to emit laser …

[IglooDude]

Brilliant work by the boffinry I'm sure, but I must confess that I'm exceedingly disappointed that the laser IS the bacon, rather than being used ON the bacon.

[tony72]

I couldn't help wondering if this technique could be contrived so as to convince the bacon to cook itself. Fantasy, I know, but a man can dream.

[Mark 85]

Not contrived, exactly but the result of another endeavor.... they wee making bacon sarnies and had to come up with some explanation for the bacon smell permeating the lab!!!!

[John Brown (no body)]

"I couldn't help wondering if this technique could be contrived so as to convince the bacon to cook itself. Fantasy, I know, but a man can dream."

That's called "a wife". Google it sometime :-)

[Robert Helpmann??]

Self-cooking Bacon

"I couldn't help wondering if this technique could be contrived so as to convince the bacon to cook itself. Fantasy, I know, but a man can dream."

That's called "a wife". Google it sometime :-)

Your wife is made of bacon?!? And she cooks herself? How awesome is that?

Mine's the one with pork laser totin' shark infested pockets.

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome...

No, sorry, too clichéd even for this subject.

[Rich 11]

A team of Harvard scientists has paved the way for a deadly laser pig weapon

'Generals gathered in their masses...'

[Hugh Pumphrey]

For all you PFYs out there ...

.... who can not remember the 1970s, the lyric is from "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath. Many thanks to Rich 11 for cheering me up on an otherwise annoying day.

[JimmyPage]

Re: For all you PFYs out there ...

I also upvoted Rich 11, however, feel obliged to point out that the next line is

"Just like witches at black masses"

which - 35 years after I first heard it - still sounds clunky and naff.

[Little Mouse]

Burn, Baby, Burn

"Seok Hyun Yun and Matjaž Humar stimulated spheres of fat inside porcine cells with an optical fibre, causing them to emit laser light"

I'm picturing a "glitterball" pig, slowly spinning high above the dancefloor.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Burn, Baby, Burn

Next stop : Try aiming it at an airplane...

[Fred Flintstone]

Re: Burn, Baby, Burn

Next stop : Try aiming it at an airplane...

Making it fly would take care of that :)

[Crisp]

Little practical use, but "very cool"

Don't most scientific discoveries start out like that?

On an unrelated note, how close are they to providing me with Superman laser vision?

[Anonymous Coward]

If only they could get them to fly as well.

[Anonymous Coward]

Self cooking pork!

[Peter Gathercole]

I don't know about self-cooking

After all, you have to provide light in the first place. Just make it infra-red, and it will cook the pork much more efficiently without turning it into micro lasers.

[Mark 'Brain Fart' Berry]

I welcome our new

airborne laser pumped self frying incredibly tasty overlords.

(Someone *had* to do it.)

[dogged]

Re: I welcome our new

I don't think anyone had to do it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I welcome our new

See my post above.

[Sureo]

There must be a new laser weight loss treatment in here somewhere.

[frank ly]

Fat cells - oh yes!

'A puff of smoke and I could wear my 32" waist jeans again. The second degree burns were an inconvenience but it was worth it.'

[hplasm]

Everyone's been concentrating on the 'Fricking Sharks'...

Is the pigs they should have beenwatching.

Now we'll need to nuke them from catapults, with mutant Birds, that are artificially stimulated to Angryness...

[Dan Paul]

Re: Everyone's been concentrating on the 'Fricking Sharks'...

Sssshhh, you'll give Adam Sandler an idea for a new bad movie......

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Everyone's been concentrating on the 'Fricking Sharks'...

and them uppity sharks'd better watch out, an'all - pigs can swim!

[Eddy Ito]

Great, bacon is just one more thing for the bureaucrats in D.C. to restrict under the new Wassenaar regulations.

[Pascal Monett]

Impossible !

That would be The End Of The World As We Know It (TM).

[Paul Kinsler]

standard comment in laser physics:

""anything will lase if you pump it hard enough"

Not sure who to attribute it to, though.

[The Indomitable Gall]

Re: standard comment in laser physics:

What, they had to pump the pigs to get them to lase? Sick fuckers!

[hplasm]

Re: standard comment in laser physics:

You could have used the Paris icon!

[Anonymous Coward]

just don't let them eat apples, for some reason they all die

[Anonymous Coward]

Homer Simpson song

Laser Pig, Laser Pig

Does whatever a Laser Pig does

Can he bite like a (frikkin') shark?

No, he can't, he's a pig,

Look out, he is a Laser-Pig!

[Simon Harris]

Laser bacon

Finally something to make vegans see the light!

[phil dude]

correction, El Reg please read your own articles....

The "fluorsecent pig" in 2006 was using the green fluorescent protein (GFP) from Aequorea victoria.

The reason why GFP has been a revolution (Nobel prize 2004) is because it DOES NOT require an external chromophore. i.e. there are no fluorescent dyes.

P.

[Gene Cash]

Hm...

So this was a pork barrel project?

[Mark 85]

And a tasty one at that.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unclean

Tee hee, a weapon that "so called Islamist State" wouldn't be able to use on religious grounds :)