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The kid in me can't get over a fascination with deathrays, be they the homemade type or the great big, hugely expensive institutional ones paid for with our tax dollars. The military is sparing no effort or expense trying to develop the next generation of directed energy weapons, including the Boeing YAL-1 Airborne Laser and the new Active Denial System (left) being tested in theater over in Afghanistan for the first time.
The ADS is not a traditional "death ray" as in a Star Trek phaser or a Star Wars light saber, but it's a good start. It uses millimeter wave radiation to cause intense pain on the victim's skin; enough pain to make the enemy get the hell out of its way before his scrotum starts sizzling. The ADS has been around for a few years and the underlying technology is pretty old - it is essentially a weaponized microwave oven. It radiates at a frequency of 95 GHz (3.22mm) - the same frequency your microwave uses to jiggle water molecules back and forth really fast to heat up your pizza from last night.
Also known as the "Pain Ray", the weapon can be ratcheted up to various levels of intensity -- apparently all the way up to a "fry-like-a-piece-of-bacon" setting, as a couple of unfortunate Airmen found out a few years ago during testing. Below is a clip of some geek reporter getting zapped at what is obviously a pretty low level of radiation - think "set phasers on stun".
