I have written about how excited I am for the new Star Trek movie. But even more than the movies, I am excited about the technology ideas Star Trek introduced that we are now moving toward. In this case, the tractor beam. (Not actually certain if that idea was original to Star Trek or not.)

Researchers have built a working tractor beam, though at the moment, it only works at the particle level, but scientists are already seeing possible medical uses. Don’t you think it would be cool if the same technology were responsible for tractor beams and medical tricorders?