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Star Trek gadgets come to life

Forty years ago the gadgets from the Star Trek series such as warp drives and transporter beams were more science fiction than fact.

But some of Star Trek's  gadgets, such as handheld medical scanners, language translators and high-tech weaponry are becoming a reality in the 21st century.

With many mobile phones, you can find out where you are using GPS, which is similar to some of the things in a tricorder which was used to ‘beam people up’.

The Star Trek franchise, which has also included five spin-off TV series, is a pop culture icon of the era, influencing many of those now creating new technology in Silicon Valley and around the globe.

Advances in medical technology have brought the world a step closer to the hand sized probe that looked at readings on his medical tricorder to diagnose injuries to Enterprise crew members.

Today, researchers are working on a variety of handheld, noninvasive medical probes. One is a needle-less blood testing device, dubbed the Venus prototype, being developed by a research team at the University of Massachusetts.

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