Lasers

Seventy-six years after the invention of the modern sprinkler helped revolutionize farming, a professor of environmental engineering is pointing a laser beam across an alfalfa crop in Southern California's Imperial Valley, looking for a better way to conserve the millions of gallons of water sprayed each year on thirsty crops.

Marla Maples has what appears to be an extremely bright green mole on her cheek. Actually it's just a benign laser beam, straying onto her features as she stands inside the lobby of Hollywood's venerable Vine Theatre. Technicians are hurriedly turning the 1937 movie house into the new permanent home of Laserium, which is returning to Los Angeles beginning Friday after seven years of being officially unplugged.

At age 60, C. Kumar N. Patel had a resume of accomplishments few scientists could match. In a span of four decades, Patel invented the carbon dioxide laser, which revolutionized manufacturing and surgical procedures, obtained 38 patents and ran the physics and engineering departments at Bell Labs, a premier research operation historically attached to AT&T.