Magnetism

The magnetic north and true north will synch at Greenwich, England over the next two weeks for the first time in 360 years.

A team from Stanford has shown that graphene arranged in a specific way can generate a magnetic field. That’s surprising enough, but it turns out this particular form of magnetism has previously only been theorized.

The closest thing we have to magnetic liquids are ferrofluids. But now, Berkeley Lab has managed to create the first permanently magnetic liquids, which could open up new avenues for electronics and robotics.

Physicists have been hunting for dark matter for decades. Hypothetical particles called axions are a long-standing candidate, but a new experiment has now found that they don’t exist – at least within a certain mass range.

Refrigerator technology hasn’t changed much in decades. Now researchers in Europe have shown promising early results with an experimental cooling system that uses magnetic fields and shape-shifting memory alloys.

A fascinating cancer detection technique has been developed by scientists at Stanford University. The process involves a small magnetic wire being inserted into a vein where it attracts free-floating tumor cells in the blood.

In the quest for tiny robots that can navigate through our bodies, Purdue University engineers have developed a new magnetic mini-robot named microTUM. The robot moves by tumbling end over end over bumps, trenches and hills, in wet or dry conditions.

The electric, magnetic, physical or chemical properties of a 3D material can radically change when it's reduced to two dimensions. Now researchers have found the first material that retains magnetism in its 2D form, opening the door to thinner electronics.

Magnets are hard to come by. In fact, only about five percent of all known inorganic compounds exhibit even a little magnetism. So instead of searching the world for new magnets, researchers have recently synthesized two of their own, from a list of 236,115 potential creations.

Scientists have developed a method of getting soft robotic objects to move using directed magnetic fields. They say that it could be used for applications ranging from remotely-triggered drug-delivery pumps within the body, to the development of remotely deployable structures.

By studying ancient pottery handles, researchers have determined that the Earth's magnetic field isn't in imminent danger of reversing and triggering a mass extinction event, but has fluctuated over the millennia with the field spiking in the 8th century BCE.

​Some magnetic particles take on certain attributes when they come in small enough packages, and scientists have now found a way to scale up these particles while retaining their desirable magnetic properties, making it possible to commandeer them for the purposes of life-saving drug delivery.