Company stunt uses Powers’ laser on ‘frickin’ shark

Laser-toting sharks were the dream of supervillain Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies, but a social media campaign has turned fiction into reality.

Marine biologist and television personality Luke Tipple strapped a 50-milliwatt green laser onto the dorsal fin of a lemon shark off the coast of the Bahamas last week.

But the world’s first laser shark— named Mr. Bigglesworth in honour of Dr. Evil’s feline sidekick — won’t be patrolling the depths any time soon.

Tipple,who has appeare don Mythbusters and the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week programs, removed the laser after a brief experiment.

Steven Campana, a marine biologist and head of the Canadian Shark Research Laboratory, said he doesn’t want to see this stunt set a precedent for others.

“If there was a valid scientific purpose here, it would be different,” he said. “We attach satellite tags that provide valuable information for shark conservation. A laser would not help.”

Wicked Lasers, a laser manufacturer that sells a variety of lasers online, promised to affix one of its lasers to a shark if one of the company’s Facebook postings received more than 2,000 “likes” within a few weeks.

When they reached that goal, the company followed through on its word, hiring Tipple to perform the feat that Dr. Evil dreamt about in the first Austin Powers film.

In the film, Dr. Evil is upset that his fully outfitted evil headquarters doesn’t include “frickin’ sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their frickin’ heads,” but rather illtempered mutant sea bass.

Despite the advent of laser sharks, no hollowed-out volcanoes are available on Caribbean real-estate listings.