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Engineers in the UK have developed a system that can grab, hold and move small objects without touching them, using "holograms" made of sound waves.
It offers the kind of remote control that naturally draws comparison with the "tractor beams" of science fiction.
So far the team has tested the design on small pea-sized objects, which they can manipulate from 30-40cm away.
Writing in Nature Communications, they suggest the work could help develop remote surgical instruments.
In essence, an object sitting in a "quiet" region of space can be held there if it is surrounded by very high-intensity sound waves. As the pattern of that boundary shifts, the object can be moved around.
The researchers programmed a grid of small speakers to emit ultrasound in intricate, shifting patterns, crafting shapes from the interacting waves that resembled tweezers, bottles, and tiny tornado-like twisters.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34647921