R w Schoenlein and his collaborators at the Lawrence BerkeleyLaboratory, US, have reported thegeneration of ultrashort pulses of X-rays using an infrared laser. The X-rays have a wavelength of 0.4angstrom and the pulse duration is300 femtoseconds (one femtosecondis 10-15 seconds). They scattered apulsed in(rared laser beam with atightly focussed electron beam tocreate theX-ray pulses. Though theamount ofX-rays ( the flux) is small,the technique is promising andcould result in the development of anew source of ultrashort X-raypulses with many applications(Science, Vol 274, No 5285).