Laser

There's one fundamental problem with tattooing "Lind Forever" on your forearm. You might marry Jane.Dr. Ross Van Antwerp has heard that story, or variations of it, dozens of times since he bought a state-of-the-art laser that effectively removes tattoos three months ago."Their wives call; they want it off. They say, 'I don't care if you use a hacksaw,' " said the Severna Park internist. "Many are people who got tattooed two decades ago and for the last decade and a half, have wanted to get them off."

HOUSTON -- In this gun-loving state, nearly everyone can enjoy the pleasure of the hunt - even those who can't see what they're shooting at. But now, a Texas legislator is proposing to give legally blind hunters more of a fighting chance by allowing them to use laser sights to target their prey. And no, Vice President Dick Cheney is not a beneficiary of the legislation, although plenty of bloggers and amateur comedians are having a good time joking that he is. Rep. Edmund Kuempel, a Republican from Seguin, east of San Antonio, has introduced a bill to exempt legally blind people from a Texas law that prohibits hunters from using laser sights or lights in hunting.

The room looks odd, almost empty except for the dental chair and a white, four-wheeled case the size of a small radiator, with a pencil-thin cable looped at one end.No sign anywhere of that big mechanism you expect to see in every dentist's office, the mastodon-like hulk that holds the spigot and bowl, the tray full of sharp instruments, the drill that'll soon be jackhammering in your mouth.Larry Zarzecki reclines in the chair, looking more laid back than any dental patient has a right to be. He doesn't mind going to the dentist, he says.

PHILADELPHIA - Federal agents have started an effort to combat what they say is a regional environmental crisis: Hundreds of thousands of Canada geese excreting waste into area drinking-water reservoirs. Rumors about the device, also known as the "laser goose-dissuader," had been flying for weeks among bird-watchers near Lake Galena in central Bucks County. It sweeps the geese off a lake like a broom, they said. The harmless laser is perhaps the weirdest tool in the arsenal available to East Coast communities coping with an exploding Canada goose population crowding lakes, soccer fields and corporate lawns.

A Howard County judge heard conflicting information yesterday about the accuracy and reliability of laser guns used by police officers to nab speeders on Maryland's highways.Circuit Judge Raymond Kane Jr. is expected to issue a ruling Monday in the case of David Goldstein, a Gaithersburg transportation consultant challenging the kind of laser gun used to snare him for speeding.Mr. Goldstein, 46, was clocked at 74 mph in his 1987 Audi by a Howard County police officer operating a laser gun along Route 32 near Jessup on July 17, 1992.

The Suttons had tried everything from soft music to earplugs. Nothing could stop Charles Sutton's snoring and give his wife, Carol, a good night's sleep.Now they are hoping that a new laser procedure will let them both sleep easier.When the Crownsville couple sought help from Dr. Douglas Finnegan, an Annapolis ear, nose and throat specialist, he suggested the laser procedure as an alternative to painful and expensive surgery. The procedure was developed in Europe a few years ago, but only introduced in the United States in May.Sitting in the patient's chair in Dr. Finnegan's office last week, Mr. Sutton was nervous, but determined to go ahead with his first treatment.

A regional task force has found that terrorism was not the motive in a New Year's Eve incident in which someone pointed a high-powered laser at an Anne Arundel County police helicopter that was conducting a low-flying search. This week, Anne Arundel County police arrested Edward W. Pannell, 38, of the 300 block of Eva Ave. in Linthicum and charged him with two counts each of reckless endangerment and using a laser pointer in a harassing manner, said county police spokesman Lt. Joseph E. Jordan.

Suppose 1.5 million people were coming over to see your fish collection but you had already drained the biggest tank for repairs and sent the fish packing.Faced with just that situation, the National Aquarium in Baltimore has hired a stand-in act called "ImaginOcean" to entertain visitors while its Atlantic Coral Reef and Open Ocean ring tanks are undergoing $12.7 million in repairs.The $500,000 laser light show fills the spiral walkways of the empty ring tanks with birds and fish hatched in a computer hard drive.

The pesky red dot has been plunked onto the rear ends of bikini-clad bathers, beamed into the faces of school bus drivers and shined into the eyes of NCAA basketball players poised to shoot free throws.Now, some state senators are setting their sights on the dot. They're targeting laser pointers, those cheap devices that cast a pea-sized red point across long distances.A bill heard in a Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee yesterday would outlaw sale of the pointers to minors and ban the gizmos for all but educational purposes -- where they are typically used by lecturers to point to charts.

In five years or so, the offices of eye doctors may well be crowded with people who have no interest in glasses or contact lenses. Instead, they'll be queuing up to have a laser beam etch a permanent vision correction into their eyes.With eyelids propped open and eyeballs anesthetized by numbing drops, they'll face the laser as it fires as many as 200 pulses of ultraviolent light with a rapid snapping sound. In a minute or less, it will have vaporized a thin layer of tissue from the cornea, the eye's transparent, lenslike covering, leaving it flattened by just the amount needed to refocus the patient's vision.