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We at PopSci appreciate new weapons. And lasers. And laser weapons. Which is why we’re excited to tell you that the Navy and the Marines have given a company called Applied Electronics about a million dollars to attach lasers onto planes. The weapons would be ultra-short-pulse (USP) lasers, which shoot beams of frequent-pulse light that create a path through the air, via which bolts of electricity can travel toward a target.

Applied Electronics used to exist in the form of the company called Ionatron, which was tasked with creating military-grade lightning weapons (above). The project and company failed — hence the lack of lightning-based weaponry today — so it’ll be interesting to see if USP laser weapons are more successful. If so, they might be able to test the lasers on popcorn-filled houses.

[via Wired]