Seeing Through Fire

One of the difficulties firefighters face is being able to see if someone is trapped behind flames. By shining infrared laser light into a scene, information carried by rays reflected by objects or people can be  reconstructed to see if this is the case. This technique was used  to produce the video below.

Developed by Pietro Ferraro and colleagues from the National Institute of Optics in Pozzuoli, Italy, they plan to make a device that houses both the laser and the holographic camera, so the system can be placed inside buildings or tunnels. There appear to be biomedical uses, also.

Here's a link to the original New Scientist article.