Swiss Researchers Try to Make it Rain With Lasers 139
formaggio writes "Last year a team of researchers at Switzerland's University of Geneva had come up with an interesting way of making it rain– by shooting lasers high up into the sky. At the time it seemed like science fiction, but now they are one step closer after the team successfully finished tests around Lake Geneva. From the article: 'Records from 133 hours of firings revealed that intense pulses of laser light created nitric acid particles in the air that behaved like atmospheric glue, binding water molecules together into droplets and preventing them from re-evaporating. Within seconds, these grew into stable drops a few thousandths of a millimeter in diameter: too small to fall as rain, but large enough to encourage the scientists to press on with the work.'"
Make it rain... (Score:5, Funny)
While they weren't able to make rain fall they did make 34 pigeons, 12 sparrows, 334 bees and 1 hanglider fall from the sky...
Re:New Age (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Flood the Sahara (Score:4, Funny)
> Other parts of the world depend on the Sahara ...
Yep. I've got hurricanes on the mind lately, so here's just one example that might not immediately occur to more normal people (I'm definitely abnormal): sometimes, you'll have a storm brewing in the Atlantic, but intensity will be inhibited by dry Saharan air mixing into the core. If you remove that dry air, we might have stronger hurricanes.
Of course, then someone will decide to blow lasers or set off nukes in the storm to compensate. What could POSSIBLY go wrong then? :)