The Big Picture: bright beams bring Buddhas back

In early June, technology was used to resurrect, if only temporarily, a pair of Buddha statues that once stood in the Bamiyan Valley of Afghanistan. In place since the sixth century, the statues were blown up in 2001 by the Taliban, which had declared them false idols. After sunset on 6 and 7 June this year, the valley was lit up with a laser light projector developed by Janson Yu and Liyan Hu???a wealthy Chinese couple who???ve crisscrossed the globe seeking adventure in some of the world???s most dangerous spots. The projector beamed 3-D images of the 53- and 35-meter-tall Buddhas right at the spots where the originals were carved into the cliff face roughly 1,500 years ago.