Commandos To Use Plasma Knives For Field Surgery

Apparently plasma knives—surgical instruments which have glowing, ionised gas as a blade—have passed Special Operations Command’s field testing and evaluation stages. Great! Now how much longer until this tech can be used to make real lightsabers?

The plasma knives are vaguely similar to tools currently used in radiosurgery, but rather than heating tissue directly and damaging it, they penetrate and cauterise it safely. While tools like this are great because they have the potential to save many lives in situations where proper hospital care is not an option, let’s be honest: most of us just plain want some mini lightsabers. [Wired]