Sci Fi / Sci Fact

Dr Krista Steenbergen takes a look at 'A New Element' as invented by Tony Stark and used in Ironman 2.

Symbiotes are extraterrestrial parasites that appear in the Marvel Comics Spiderverse. In particular, Venom is a symbiote who attaches to journalist Eddie Brock. Dr Paul Hume chats with Bryan Crump about the feasibility of coming across a symbiote in real life.

In Larry Niven's 1970 science fiction novel, Louis Wu and his companions crash land on a rotating ring world constructed by aliens. Dr Chris Bumby and Bryan Crump discuss whether we might one day build our own space Ringworld.

The Starship Enterprise crew's tricorders have a multitude of uses, from scanning a new planet's surface to staff health checks. Dr Michel Nieuwoudt chats about whether we could even construct such a device.

Rodrigo Martinez Gazoni chats with Bryan Crump about the scientific plausibility of Batman's cape and some of his other gadgets.

Greedy corporations seeking Unobtainium are the bad guys in James Cameron's Avatar movie franchise. Associate Professor Nicola Gaston discusses the parallels between the fictional mineral and solid hydrogen.

Spoiler Alert: In the Christopher Nolan movie Interstellar, an astronaut gets sucked into a black hole but manages to communicate with his daughter and find his way out. Richard Easther tells us the realities of being sucked into a black hole.

Colm Healy chats about the magic of material science and possible real life equivalents to Harry Potter's invisibility cloak.

Elizabeth Holmes is serving prison time for fraud after convincing the world she had developed a simple blood test that could diagnose a range of diseases. Professor Duncan McGillivray looks at whether the fiction could one day be a reality.

Wonder Woman can stop bullets with her Feminum bracelets but, apart from needing the reflexes to achieve this, could any material that's light enough to wear on your wrists do that?