Science News Roundup: There's light-speed travel in 'Star Wars' and 'Star Trek.' Is it possible?

There's light-speed travel in 'Star Wars' and 'Star Trek.' Is it possible? Spaceships zipping at the speed of light or faster are a staple of science fiction. Think of the Millennium Falcon in the "Star Wars" movies and the starship Enterprise in "Star Trek." Such travel sounds like fanciful speculation.

More twins are being born now than ever before, largely due to rising use of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and other assisted reproduction techniques, the first global study of human twinning has found. With about 1.6 million twins born each year worldwide, the global twinning rate has risen by a third since the 1980s, to 12 per 1,000 deliveries from 9 per 1,000 around 30 years ago, the study found.

There's light-speed travel in 'Star Wars' and 'Star Trek.' Is it possible?

Spaceships zipping at the speed of light or faster are a staple of science fiction. Think of the Millennium Falcon in the "Star Wars" movies and the starship Enterprise in "Star Trek." Such travel sounds like fanciful speculation. But is it? A new research paper authored by an American physicist offers a potential blueprint for superluminal travel - faster than the speed of light - using conventional physics rather than a construct based upon hypothetical particles and states of matter with exotic physical properties.