A team of physicists at Scotland's Dundee University has turned science fiction into science fact by creating the first functioning acoustic tractor beam. Until now tractor beams - devices with the ability to attract one object to another from a distance - have only featured in science fiction films, plausible only in the other worlds, planets and galaxies featured in the likes of Star Trek and Star Wars. Working with colleagues at Southampton University and Illinois Wesleyan University, researchers from Dundee University have used energy from an ultrasound array to exert force behind an object and pull it towards the energy source. Dr Christine Demore, from the Institute for Medical Science and Technology at Dundee, said: "This is the first time anyone has demonstrated a working acoustic tractor beam and the first time such a beam has been used to move anything bigger than microscopic targets.
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