Quaise is taking its technology from the lab to field trials for the first time this year. A beam of energy hit the slab of rock, which quickly began to glow. Pieces cracked off, sparks ricocheted, ...

A beam of electromagnetic energy traveling at the speed of light strikes a thick slab of basalt, one of the hardest rocks on Earth. It heats the stone to around 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, vaporizing it ...

It’s an inconvenient fact that most of Earth’s largesse of useful minerals is locked up in, under, and around a lot of rock. Our little world condensed out of the remnants of stars whose death throes ...