Star Trek's planet killer becomes a promising new cancer therapy...

The link between science fiction and new technology is well established: Space travel? Jules Verne. Communications satellites? Arthur C Clarke. Now a super weapon from Star Trek has found it's way into the real world, but as something much more benign. 'Proton beams' are a type of weapon from Star Trek. In fact I'm pretty sure I've seen an episode of the original series where a giant robot that looked like a concrete windsock was using a proton beam  to destroy planets:

In the real world proton beams area actually awesome. They're weapons, but not against planets: They're being used as a new therapy against cancer, destroying the tumours with fewer side effects and less toxicity:

In a world where one in three of us will suffer with cancer at some point in our lives, we need all the arsenal we can get...