Scientists have shown off a new laser that boasts an incomparable mix of speed, short pulses and power. That's newsworthy in and of itself, but this laser, developed by researchers at the University of Konstanz in Germany and, here in the U.S., at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, could also lead to a 100-fold increase in the sensitivity of observatories searching for extrasolar planets. The laser itself is the size of a dime, and pops out 10 billion pulses per second with an average power of 650 milliwatts.

Australian artist Chris Poole was driving around his native Perth recently, when some curbside garbage caught his eye. Unlike the average scavenger, Poole wasn’t searching for couches or chairs. He had his eye on an old slide viewer—a key component for his next project, a laser-based projector that could display family photos (albeit with a green hue) to the entire town.