The one thing I wanted most out of all the cool gadgets on Star Trek was my very own transporter. What could be better than being able to be where ever you wished in just a few seconds? Well, it’s not quite there yet, but a team of scientists have managed to teleport data nearly 100 miles thanks to a version they are experimenting with.

The team of physicists set a brand new record for transporting info through the air using quantum teleportation from Canary Island to Tenerife Island, which is 89 miles away. The accomplishment is 10 miles more than they were able to send it in previous experiments.

The team used what is called quantum entanglement, which is when the state of matter instead of the matter itself is transported from one location to the next. They sent it using micro-sized packets of light called photons was used to send the data between two telescopes positioned on the two islands.

Star Trek’s transporter machine was also supposed to be based on quantum entanglement, do this experiment is a mini-step towards that possibility. Still, so far it’s only been used on the most basic forms of matter and the scientists all agree that a different method than they have tried so far would have to be used for transporting inanimate objects, let alone people or animals.

Robert Ursin of the University of Vienna said that this latest experiment shows that the current experiment in quantum entanglement shows that it has great possibilities as a way to send sensitive data through satellites that use quantum cryptography, because it could send out a security code that was unhackable.

Ursin said their goal was to try the procedure in space. He added that in the future if could possibly be
used to transport information, but that for now we aren’t able to send actual matter using today’s technology.

Quantum entanglement was described by the famous Albert Einstein as a "spooky action at a distance." It works by two photons being made using a method where they act like a single photon even if they are far apart. When they act like that, they are behaving like a transporter machine because if you change one, it causes the other to change accordingly. A third photo is how the information is passed along, and it is transported from the first photo in the transmitting station to the second one in the receiver position.

In the process, the third photon becomes entangled with the transmitting photon and so carries its quantum information to the receiving photon, which interacts with the third photon in such a way that it becomes identical to it - hence the information is successfully transmitted.

I guess I won’t be packing for a quick trip to Europe or elsewhere for awhile, but it shows that yet another of the fantastic and futuristic gadgets on Star Trek are set to become a reality.

Remember Dr. McCoy on Star Trek’s trusty medical tricorder? Scientists in Britain evidently watched a lot of Star Trek when they were younger, as they have come up with a gadget similar to the famous science fiction show’s medical tricorder that can really detect disease.

The CliniHub, as it is called, is a handheld gadget that can tell in minutes if a patient has breast cancer, or a number of other diseases. Samples of a patient’s blood, saliva or urine are placed into ports on the device and are tested.
British doctors are already using it in clinical trials to detect breast cancer and have discovered that it detects it at a much faster rate than they had previously been able to do, thus it is already saving lives.

Chemicals inside the ports cause a reaction in the test samples, which then change in color to show if there is disease present or not. This is somewhat similar to the way pregnancy tests now show if a woman is pregnant or not. The results of the test then show up on an LED screen and can be read by the doctor.

CliniHub is being made by Cambridge Consultants along with XenBio Fluidics, in California. A spokesperson for Cambridge Consultants said that he is certain the device will be helping to diagnose disease in our future and says the gadget will be developed to recognize more diseases and have more applications in time.

The CliniHub is about the size of a netbook and will be priced less than $100, making it very affordable for future doctors to carry around, much like are good Dr. McCoy on Star Trek. Right now it can detect breasts cancer, MRSA and a third disease which was not listed. Developers say it will soon be able to tell if a patient has up to 20 diseases that are common in GP surgeries.

Plans are underway too for a home device that would allow for testing for simple diseases such as strep throat. The person could swab someone’s throat and put it into the machine and tell if they had an infection or not. Perhaps it will be as common as the thermometer is now in our homes.

More clinical tests of the device have already been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.

An entertainment series on science fiction in America that saw tremendous success was the Star Trek Alien Races series. The original series was made for television and Gene Roddenberry created it to be telecasted in the year 1966.

The television series worked really well and was shown for three consecutive seasons. Next came an adventure animated series for television and as many as six feature films. The adventure of Star Trek further commenced in four television series. The characters for this show were different. This program was Star Trek: The Next Generation. If the original series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager were awesome, Star Trek: Enterprise and Star Trek: The Next Generation was equally loved by audience. The latest of all is a movie made in 2009 that features a younger crew.

Star Trek Alien Races is not limited to television and movies. The popularity of this program became so high that it started coming in video as well as computer games. Even thousands of novels came on the same concept with same characters and the Las Vegas casinos had Star Trek themed attractions for its players.

Conception: How Star Trek Came into Being?

The proposal to make this science fiction was drafted by Gene Roddenberry in the year 1960. He wanted to move on the same lines as Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. He wanted to make the show on adventure and suspense story as well as a moral story.

The basic concept of Star Trek is to offer adventures of aliens from Federation’s Starfleet and human beings. Each series presented with a dilemma and the protagonists applied to this dilemma. The series had a political dimension and cultural realities. Issues of the year 1960 were addressed in the Star Trek: The Original Series.

The major events and issues that came to light through the series included personal loyalty, imperialism, authoritarianism, warfare, racism, human rights, economics, feminism, religion and sexism other than the state of the art technology.

It was clear in the mind of Roddenberry while conceptualizing the show that he wants to show political agenda of progressive nature. Also, he wanted to show the youth movement that became a part of the present day culture. He wanted to portray what the present day world may develop into a decade from then, learning from the past and may be finding future in violence.

His ideas and conception met with bias as well as oppositions and while he was able to show a lot, there were sides he was not permitted to show on the series.

Television series
Star Trek Alien Races have their foundations in the six series created for television, namely, The Original Series, The Next Generation, The Animated Series, Deep Space Nine, The Enterprise and Voyager. Till date, as many as 726 episodes of Star Trek have been made. The television series has witnessed 30 seasons, which is remarkable.

What began from just a television series and converted into films saw a phenomenon difference in opinions. Some people loved it while some hated it and ridiculed it.