Picking your favorite non-lethal weapon can be tough. I'm partial to the microwave-based Active Denial System that former PopSci editor Eric Adams had the, er, courage to stand in front of a few years ago. (An experience described in detail here.) Or I might give a nod to the paralyzing, hardening foam that momentarily holds down The Hulk in the 2003 movie, and has been used by the U.S. military with mixed results.

But a California company may be developing the real winner, an LED-based flashlight that shoots out incredibly bright pulses of light, and can potentially induce vomiting. The Department of Homeland Security is funding the study, and Penn State will begin testing it this fall at the Institute of Nonlethal Defense Technology. Any volunteers?—Gregory Mone

Three years ago, I was shot by the U.S. Air Force. It hurt like hell,
but it didn't kill me. Nor were there any residual effects. In fact,
five seconds after they shot me, I could barely tell that anything had
happened at all. The weapon they hit me with was the Active Denial
System—a microwave pain beam. I volunteered as a test subject
for a story on nonlethal weapons, and the Air Force saw no reason not to shoot a journalist with the thing. You can
read about my superhuman pain-endurance capabilities here.
(Actually, I sprang into the air like a ballerina the second they
turned it on.)

After several years of further development and
miniaturization, it looks like the Air Force is about to deploy the
pain beam to Iraq as a crowd-control device. It remains controversial,
because the implications of its strategic use are still unknown, and
some think the long-term residual effects on victims have yet to be
fully assessed. I can tell you from experience, though, that apart from
my newfound ability to heat up cups of tea simply by staring intensely
at them for 15 seconds, I've suffered no ill effects. [Side note: In the Wired article below, the writer's being a bit dramatic. The truth is, you don't actually feel like
you've been dipped in molten lava, and you don't almost faint from
shock and pain. Your body acts faster than you can think, so you don't
stick around long enough to get even close to fainting. Deployed
versions would have built-in cutoffs to prevent the beam from lingering
long enough on an individual to have such effects.] Also, watch for our
February feature on nonlethal weapons being adopted by the Los Angeles
Sheriff's Department. —Eric Adams

Link via Wired