All posts tagged: Magnetic

BYD’s new magnetic EV device lets you control your car on the go

BYD’s new magnetic EV device lets you control your car on the go

Published by skeptic

BYD is about to introduce a new detachable magnetic smart device that lets you control your vehicle remotely at the push of a button. BYD is launching a new magnetic smart device The world’s leading EV maker previewed its latest innovation on Tuesday — A smart magnetic device, “Flexible Buttons,” that detaches, allowing you to manage vehicle functions. Instead of pulling out a smartphone, you can use it to control the vehicle’s infotainment, climate control, audio, and other in-car features at the push of a button, BYD said. Since it links to BYD’s smart ecosystem via Bluetooth, the device can be taken on the go to control the vehicle remotely. Advertisement – scroll for more content The device uses magnets, like a MagSafe on the back of your iPhone, so that it can be easily installed and charged in the vehicle. The new in-car smart device is part of BYD’s broader expansion into smart in-vehicle software and hardware. The company also previewed a “brand-new interface” that appears to be a central magnetic hub that’s expected …

Sperm have been made magnetic to allow IVF inside the body

Sperm have been made magnetic to allow IVF inside the body

Published by skeptic

IVF has helped many people overcome fertility problems, but could be improved by doing more of the process within the body ZEPHYR/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Embryos have been formed from sperm that have been made magnetic to allow remote guidance towards an egg. The technique may allow IVF to be performed inside the body so it involves fewer invasive procedures and potentially has better success rates. “Our ultimate idea is to do assisted reproduction in vivo, taking advantage of the body as a natural incubator,” says Mariana Medina-Sánchez at nanoscience institute CIC nanoGUNE in Spain. Conceiving naturally is harder when sperm numbers or motility are low, because too few sperm make it into the fallopian tubes to fertilise an egg. Assistance can be provided by IVF, in which sperm are placed with an egg in a dish, or directly injected into an egg, to form embryos. However, IVF involves hormone injections, egg retrievals and embryo transfers, which are invasive and can have unpleasant side effects. Many IVF cycles are also unsuccessful, partly because the artificial environment in …

Pigeons may use magnetic immune cells to find their way home

Pigeons may use magnetic immune cells to find their way home

Published by Jenni Sidey

For centuries, homing pigeons have amazed people with their ability to return home across vast distances. Even when released in unfamiliar places, these birds often find their way back with remarkable precision. Scientists have long known that pigeons and many other birds rely on Earth’s magnetic field as part of their navigation system. Yet one major question remained unanswered: How do they actually sense it? A new study suggests the answer may lie in an unexpected place. Instead of the eyes, beak or brain, researchers have identified iron-rich immune cells in the liver that appear to act as part of an internal magnetic compass. The discovery offers what scientists describe as the strongest evidence yet for a previously unknown mechanism of magnetic sensing in animals. It also reveals a surprising connection between the immune system and perception. “We didn’t expect immune cells to act like sensors for magnetic fields at all. Our results reveal a previously unknown mechanism for magnetic perception in animals,” said Prof. Christian Kurts, Director of the Institute of Molecular Medicine and …

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 …