Article: Ray guns and plastic ice: Pentagon looks to sci-fi weaponry

PHYSORG.com reports: "The space-age weapons of Star Wars are not beyond the imagination of researchers at DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the US Department of Defense. ... The agency sponsors research into numerous aspects of military operations, particularly technology, it says, 'where risk and payoff are both very high and where success may provide dramatic advances for traditional military roles and missions.' "