Yes. At first I thought it was a joke article, wherein someone had the brilliant idea of turning on a light in order to see a scroll previously unreadable because it was hidden in a dark cave. "How did you manage to read the scroll?" "Photon beams!" "Whoaaaa"

I thought the same thing, a joke. Then I read it as 'proton beam' for a few milliseconds...the brain does funny things when it's trying to make sense of something.

Thanks for making me chuckle today.

Think the plural on beams refers to the beam splitting going on in phase-contrast x-ray imaging http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-contrast_X-ray_imaging

They didnt use the traditional x-ray imaging that has been around for a hundred years.

How about this: "Scientists couldn't see what was written on the scrolls until they turned on some lights." The connotation behind "photon beams" more accurately conveys the accomplishment than the roughly synonymous "turning on some lights".

I thought they meant some kind of visible light laser and wondered why they didn't just say 'light beams'. After all, visible light is the most familiar form of photon to most people.

clickbait!