In his laboratory at North Carolina State University, Michael Dickey holds a small sample of what looks like mercury but behaves with an almost otherworldly intelligence.

As he applies a tiny electrical charge, the silvery liquid metal spreads like a pancake, then snaps back into a perfect sphere when the voltage reverses.

It's a real-world demonstration of what science fiction promised decades ago.

"It's one of the most interesting elements on the periodic table, and nobody's ever pushed back on that," Dickey told Cowboy State Daily, comparing the critical element gallium to the imaginary sci-fi metal that formed the shape-shifting T-1000 terminator in the 1991 film "Terminator 2."

If destroyed, the T-1000 could, like a liquid, reconstitute itself with terrifying effect thanks to a fi

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