Dennis Normile
Tokyo--Japan is thinking small in science--on a grand scale. The goal is to squeeze the capabilities of high-power lasers into a new generation of lasers that can fit on a table top. A $100 million a year project is gearing up to build an Advanced Photon Research Center that will extend the abilities of short-pulse lasers and turn them into new tools for accelerating particles, creating x-ray holograms of living cells, and exploring ultrahigh-speed phenomena.