Pics: The Space Shuttle Enterprise Arrives at JFK

A friend of a friend of a friend (sounds like a fish story, doesn't it?) works at JFK and took some pictures of the Space Shuttle Enterprise this past Friday as it came in, as well as some shots on the tarmac.

Enjoy!

Doctor Who's Sonic Screwdriver: Now a thing

Anyone who's a fan of the classic 1960s-2000s British sci-fi Doctor Who will know of the sonic screwdriver, a wondrous device capable of being anything from a lockpick to a Whovian equivalent of Star Trek's tricorder. It has served the Doctor (and presumably the other Gallifryeans - when they were still around) very well over his many incarnations.

And, of course, there have been countless fan-built - and commercially-built - replicas. But now, intrepid scientists* at Dundee University in the UK have created an ultrasound device - which, in the press release, they have actually called a sonic screwdriver - that uses a helical beam of ultrasound to turn objects.

Having a quick nose through the press release, I notice that the beam is made of up several helixes. If you've played Portal 2, the ultrasound beam would look probably look a bit like an Aperture Science Excursion Funnel - if you could see it.

The Aperture Science Excursion Funnel - what the sonic screwdriver beam might look like, if you could actually see the thing. (Picture credit: The Half-Life Wiki.)

But the boffins at Dundee Uni aren't doing it because they're fans of the show - this bad boy is a proof of concept which, the scientists say, could be applied to non-invasive ultrasound surgery, amongst other things.

I just hope the BBC doesn't sue for the use of the name. And... anyone building a TARDIS?


Story source: The Mary Sue, who got it from The Beat, who got it from the BBC. Now all we need is for another website to reference Sense Deprived as a source, and we're good to go!


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* I have to admit that I've never heard of scientists who aren't intrepid, although given infinite diversity in infinite combinations, they must exist...