Laser made from human blood.

[CurtisOliver]

Just sharing this cool article.
I always wondered if this was possible due to the lovely red glow you get when you shine a light through your hand. Now it could be used in the fight against tumours. It is basically a blood dye laser. I wonder if different blood types give slightly different results. This forum could give a whole new reason to giving blood.
New Scientist

 

[Alaskan]

Bloody awesome.

 

[diachi]

Saw that the other day on the Laserist FB group, rather cool!

 

[CurtisOliver]

lol, yes it is bloody cool. I wonder what else they will lase next? I came across it today because I was interested to see if there is anything laser based I have missed out on. I thought this was worth sharing.

 

[diachi]

lol, yes it is bloody cool. I wonder what else they will lase next? I came across it today because I was interested to see if there is anything laser based I have missed out on. I thought this was worth sharing.

Blood has to be the strangest lasing medium I've seen thus far - or at least, the least expected.

There's the old "Jello Laser" legend - which while technically possible is not something you'd want to eat...

The Jello Laser Legend

Whether you can take any currently available flavor of off-the-shelf Jello(tm) brand dessert mix and build a working laser using it as the lasing medium is unknown. However, clear gelatin can certainly be doped with a variety of dyes to create some sort of a dye laser. But, it might not be tasty to eat. The seminal paper on this work (I'm serious!) is: "Laser Action of Dyes in Gelatin", T. W. Hansch, M. Pernier, A. L. Schawlow, IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics, January 1971, pp. 45-6. (Thanks to: Jon Singer, of the Joss Research Institute, for tracking down the reference.) The authors tried various types of materials for the lasing medium using a nitrogen laser pump source including:
For a watered down version which covers the lasing of Scotch whiskey fumes and dyed gelatin, see: Schawlow, A. L., "Lasers: The Practical and the Possible", The Stanford Magazine, Stanford Alumni Association, Stanford, CA, pp. 24-29, Spring/Summer 1979.p

From: Sam's Laser FAQ - Home-Built Dye Laser

 

[CurtisOliver]

I have seen that mentioned before. It is technically possible to lase anything, but with great difficulty.
It is pretty ingenious for the purpose they want to use the laser.