hot stuff...coming through

a new laser shot through sapphire, heating it faster than any previously recorded explosion. in a brilliant display of comic prowess, nature reports: "The experiment was a blast, say physicists who reckon their laser can drive temperature increases of a billion billion (10¹⁸) degrees per second, although they could only keep it going for a couple of hundred femtoseconds (with a femtosecond being 10^-15 s)." (the picture is of two incisions left by the laser)