The infrared signal is then transmitted to an infrared receiver on the phone, which then beams it across the mobile phone network to the doctor's computer.

BBC: Medicine over the mobile network

The LHC accelerates two beams of subatomic particles to nearly the speed of light and then deliberately collides the beams into one another to re-create the conditions that existed just milliseconds after the Big Bang.

BBC: Hadron Collider replica

These machines work by separating, then recombining, two beams of precisely synchronised atoms of, say, neon.

ECONOMIST: Planck-scale physics

Then he pointed to its steel beams and spires.

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It beams first to your computer, then to a secure server, which verifies you match your signing pattern.

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By firing particle beams through it, they would then recreate the rain of cosmic rays and see whether clouds formed.

ECONOMIST: Global warming

First, customers have to swipe their driving licence to prove they are 21, then they stand in front of a surveillance camera which beams their image to a call center where a state worker checks it against the licence.

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Then she grabs two ski-pole-like handles, presses a button and waits as beams of light trace over her body.

ECONOMIST: American textiles