If you could hold a giant magnifying glass in space and focus all the sunlight shining toward Earth onto one grain of sand, that concentrated ray would approach the intensity of a new laser beam. The pulsed laser beam lasts just 30 femtoseconds. A femtosecond is a millionth of a billionth of a second. Such intense beams could help scientists develop better proton and electron beams for radiation treatment of cancer, among other applications.