(Our happy hour fact to amaze your drinking buddies with.)

The army is moving forward with plans to develop a truck-mounted high-energy laser cannon.

Boeing was recently awarded the contract to build this weapon system, which should be ready for battlefield-strength testing in 2013.

Other futuristic laser weapons in the Army's developmental pipeline include a gunship armed with a ray gun, a mortar that uses fiber lasers instead of traditional shells and a modified 747 that employs an airborne laser beam to shoot down ballistic missiles.

The Army remains mum on plans to mount laser beams on the heads of sharks, or any other ill-tempered sea life.