Wow... & I didn't even know there was a plasma weapon on the horizon. This thing sounds, pardon the expression, hella cool. I guess I'm totally in the dark, 'cuz I'd never heard of "pain researchers" until this article, either. Heh... those guys must be interesting to have dinner with...

" Scientists have reacted angrily to the revelation that the US military is funding development of a weapon intended to deliver an 'excrutiating bout of pain' from over a mile away. The 'Pulsed Energy Projectile' (PEP) device 'fires a laser pulse that generates a burst of expanding plasma when it hits something solid', the New Scientist explains. If you happen to be that something solid, then you get temporarily incapacitated without suffering permanent injury."