Dan Wildt, Northrop's vice president of directed energy systems, says that if the military decides to begin using these weapons, they could be in the field by the middle of the decade.

FORBES: Magazine Article

So Dr Wildt's group is, for example, using a test-tube assay to measure hormone patterns in the faeces of endangered clouded leopards, and correlating these to behaviour under stress with a view to improving reproductive efficiency.

ECONOMIST: Endangered species

"We are hopeful that our breeding efforts will be successful this year, and we're encouraged by all the behaviors and hormonal data we've seen so far, " said Dave Wildt, head of the Center for Species Survival at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.

CNN: Giant panda gets artificially inseminated