All posts tagged: Magnetic

New analysis reveals why Ganymede has a magnetic field when other moons do not

New analysis reveals why Ganymede has a magnetic field when other moons do not

Published by Jenni Sidey

Ganymede has long looked like a contradiction in orbit. Jupiter’s largest moon is the only moon known to generate its own magnetic field, a trait more commonly associated with planets like Earth and Mercury. But that magnetic shield points to a liquid, churning metal core, and by many formation models, Ganymede should have started out too cold to build one. A new analysis argues that both ideas may be true, at least in part. Instead of forming a metallic core near the beginning of the solar system and slowly cooling ever since, Ganymede may have begun cold and then warmed over billions of years. In that picture, metal inside the moon melted late, sank inward, and may still be feeding the core today. The result is a different kind of dynamo, the deep planetary engine that creates magnetic fields. Possible thermal evolution of Ganymede’s interior based on assumed initial temperatures. (CREDIT: Science Advances) “For decades, studies have progressed in parallel with conflicting assumptions about how Ganymede formed and evolved,” Kevin Trinh lead author from Arizona …

Pigeons use their livers to sense Earth’s magnetic field

Pigeons use their livers to sense Earth’s magnetic field

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. For decades, scientists have known that Earth’s magnetic field helps migratory birds and homing pigeons navigate. Just how our feathered friends sense the invisible sphere around the Earth, however, has been less clear.  At least part of the answer appears to be hiding inside a seemingly random organ. Immune cells inside pigeon livers called macrophages are sensitive to the planet’s magnetic field. These cells function like an internal compass, according to a new study published today in the journal Science.  Macrophages destroy old red blood cells, which makes them accumulate iron. The iron makes the macrophages  superparamagnetic, a kind of magnetism that takes place in particular nanoparticles. The nanoparticles can then be magnetized if a magnetic field is applied to them.  “When pigeons …

New material stores four magnetic states per cell – exponentially increasing memory storage

New material stores four magnetic states per cell – exponentially increasing memory storage

Published by Jenni Sidey

Every text message, photograph, and saved file still comes down to a simple bargain: information is stored as either 0 or 1. That binary system built modern computing, and for decades engineers kept improving it by shrinking the transistors that carry and store those bits. That long run is getting harder to sustain. As components approach physical limits, researchers are looking for other ways to handle information, including methods that do not rely only on electric charge. One of the most closely watched alternatives is spintronics, a field that uses another property of electrons, their magnetism, to store and process data. A new study from researchers at Institut Laue-Langevin pushes that idea in an unusual direction. Instead of building memory around two stable magnetic states, the work shows that a single crystal can hold four. In principle, that could let one memory unit represent four values rather than just 0 and 1, opening a path toward denser forms of digital storage. The material at the center of the work is a magnetoelectric crystal called LiNi0.8Fe0.2PO4, …

5 Magnetic Things Women Do That Make Men Think About Them Constantly | Kristina Marchant

5 Magnetic Things Women Do That Make Men Think About Them Constantly | Kristina Marchant

Published by Jenni Sidey

First, let me say that you can’t actually make a man fall in love with you, but you can certainly inspire his love for you. This is important to remember for many reasons, mostly because a lot of women think they can somehow earn a man’s love by putting lots of energy into the relationship. Unfortunately for them, love doesn’t work this way. The kind of women that linger in a man’s mind are usually the ones who have something that men can’t really put into words. They’re qualities that make him replay conversations in his mind and reach for his phone to connect. This kind of magnetism might spark from physical attraction or flirting tricks, but it’s maintained through the way a woman carries herself when she’s not trying to impress anyone.  Here are 5 magnetic things women do that make men think about them constantly: 1. Magnetic women don’t chase Exerting effort in the relationship doesn’t work, but what does work is allowing the man to roll up his sleeves and earn your …

Time-varying magnetic fields can create exotic quantum matter

Time-varying magnetic fields can create exotic quantum matter

Published by Jenni Sidey

Quantum technology often gets pitched as a faster kind of computing. This research points in a different direction first: control. By changing a magnetic field on a schedule, rather than leaving it fixed, physicists found they could make matter settle into quantum states that do not exist in ordinary stationary materials. That is the idea behind new work from Cal Poly lecturer Ian Powell and student researcher Louis Buchalter, who examined what happens when magnetic flux on a lattice flips between different values over time. Their study, published in Physical Review B as “Flux-Switching Floquet Engineering,” looks at how time-dependent driving can reorganize quantum systems into unusual topological phases, including some with no static counterpart. “On a big-picture level, I would describe this as an advance in our understanding of how time-dependent control can create and organize new forms of quantum matter,” Powell said. “The central idea is that useful quantum properties can depend not just on what a material is, but on how it is driven in time. In our case, we show that …

This tiny, magnetic e-reader could stop you from doomscrolling

This tiny, magnetic e-reader could stop you from doomscrolling

Published by skeptic

It was love at first sight. It felt like scouring the mall, dipping in and out of sprawling department stores in search of a specific, elusive item, only to finally find what you’re looking for. Only, I didn’t even know I was searching for something like the Xteink X3, because I never dared dream of something so delightful: a tiny, MagSafe-compatible e-ink reader that could attach to my iPhone like a Pop Socket. This was it. My life would change forever. I would get my hands on the Xteink X3, and I would stop doomscrolling forever. I would read more books than ever before… which is saying something, since – brag – I read at least 50 books a year. But – not a brag – I probably spend even more time on social media than I do reading. I know that I feel generally less anxious when I limit my social media time, but alas, the siren song of TikTok beckons me. What if instead of opening social media, I could just flip my …

Doubts cast over ‘wild’ claim that magnetic control can turn on genes

Doubts cast over ‘wild’ claim that magnetic control can turn on genes

Published by skeptic

Controlling our genes via a magnetic field would be transformative Science Lab / Alamy It is a major breakthrough if it really works: researchers in South Korea say they have developed a magnetically controlled switch for turning on genes inside cells, which could lead to transformative medical treatments. But others say the results, which were published in a major journal, are implausible and there are issues with the paper, such as an image that is merely a flipped version of another. The key question now is whether independent groups are able to replicate the result. One of the critics, physicist Andrew York, thinks this should have been tried before the paper was published. “The claim is so strong, so wild, so game-changing, that you really should send a sample to another lab, get them to check, ‘Yep, we see it too’,” says York, who works for a research organisation in the US but was speaking as a private individual. “I believe the paper was under review for three years. It’s plenty of time to send …

Cassini-Huygens mission finds lopsided shift in Saturn’s magnetic bubble

Cassini-Huygens mission finds lopsided shift in Saturn’s magnetic bubble

Published by Jenni Sidey

Saturn’s magnetic shield does not sit where many scientists would expect. After combing through years of data from the Cassini spacecraft, researchers found that a key opening in Saturn’s magnetosphere, the region where solar wind particles can slip into the planet’s atmosphere, is pushed well away from the noon position seen at Earth. Instead, it tends to sit in the afternoon sector, usually between 13:00 and 15:00 local time, and sometimes stretches as far as 20:00. That skew, the team says, points to a basic difference in how giant planets work. The finding comes from a study in Nature Communications based on Cassini-Huygens mission data collected between 2004 and 2010. The researchers argue that Saturn’s rapid rotation, combined with the heavy plasma supplied largely by its moon Enceladus, reshapes the planet’s magnetic environment in a way that sets it apart from Earth’s more solar-wind-driven system. At Earth, the cusp of the magnetosphere usually lines up near local noon. That is where magnetic field lines bend in a way that allows charged solar particles to funnel …

New form of friction arises purely from magnetic interactions – no contact required

New form of friction arises purely from magnetic interactions – no contact required

Published by Jenni Sidey

Friction usually announces itself through contact. A chair scraping across a floor, a tire gripping asphalt, a hand sliding over fabric. For centuries, the rule seemed simple: press harder, and resistance grows. That idea, formalized in Amontons’ law, has guided physics since the 17th century. Now a tabletop experiment suggests a very different picture can emerge when nothing touches at all. Researchers at the University of Konstanz have identified a form of friction that arises purely from magnetic interactions. No surfaces rub together. No material wears down. Yet resistance appears, peaks, and then fades again as conditions change. The familiar rule linking friction to load no longer holds in a straightforward way. Instead of steadily increasing, friction rises to a maximum and then drops, all because of how tiny magnetic elements struggle to agree with each other. Experimental set-up, total friction and order parameter. (CREDIT: Nature) When More Pressure Does Not Mean More Resistance Amontons’ law rests on a simple observation. Heavier objects press surfaces together, increasing microscopic contact points and boosting friction. That logic …

Large-scale waves are forming deep inside our Sun

Large-scale waves are forming deep inside our Sun

Published by Jenni Sidey

They move through the Sun like slow, immense swells, far below anything telescopes can see. For years, those depths have remained out of reach. Light cannot escape them, and direct measurements are impossible. Yet a new analysis suggests that the Sun’s interior is not silent. It carries large-scale waves shaped by magnetic forces, and those waves can be tracked from afar. Listening Instead of Looking The Sun does not sit still. Its surface and interior constantly tremble with subtle oscillations. Scientists have long used these vibrations to study its structure, a method often compared to seismology on Earth. Theoretical dispersion relations of magneto-Rossby modes and the associated magnetic fields. (CREDIT: Nature) This time, the focus shifted deeper. By carefully analyzing long-term data, the team identified a pattern that had gone unnoticed. The signals suggested the presence of global-scale waves moving through the Sun’s interior, influenced not just by rotation or heat, but by magnetism. “These waves give us a unique look at the Sun’s hidden magnetic system,” said Shravan Hanasoge, co-principal investigator at the center …