Physicists have set a new record for the acceleration of electrons by laser-produced plasmas. A team led by Karl Krushelnick of Imperial College in London has accelerated electrons to energies of 300 MeV - a third higher than the previous best - by focusing a high-power laser into a jet of helium gas (Phys. Rev. Lett. 94 245001). However, they discovered that the mechanisms by which the electrons are accelerated changes as the laser intensity is increased.