Image Credit: Greg Williams David Ruffner wasn't thinking about tractor beams-- until NASA called. Last year, a team of researchers at NASA set out to work with scientists to develop a beam of light that could draw objects back along its length. Affixed to a space-probe, the tractor beam would remotely collect extraterrestrial atmospheric and planetary particles and transport them back to the space-probe for analysis. Now, scientists at New York University have put science-fiction into practice with a device that can pull particles of sand, plastic, and even molecules and cells up a conveyor belt of light.
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