International Joint COE Center for Magnetic Self-Organization

Its main subject is to activate the international and interdisciplinary research of magnetic self-organization in space and laboratory plasmas. Its keys are to solve how the magnetic field lines reconnect with each other and how its local features are connected to global restructuring of magnetic configuration.

Source: http://www.k.u-tokyo.ac.jp/news/20100628press-01-e.html

Megnetic flying micro-robots

A research team lead by professor Mir Behrad Khamesee manipulated magnetic fields to levitate and move a robot weighing less than one gramme around three axes.

Source

Magnetocaloric Material

This idea isn't new - scientists have been using magnetic refrigerators to achieve very low temperatures for decades. However, until now magnetocalorics have required the use of gadolinium or arsenic alloys - both toxic and expensive metals. A joint team working with the National Institute of Science and Technology has now discovered a magnetocaloric composed of manganese, iron, phosphorus and germanium - far more common elements. In addition, the new material responds very well magnetocalorically - meaning large temperature changes occur for a given magnetic field.

Source

Storing data with a Magnetic Tornado

Argonne National Laboratory researchers said recently that they have discovered a way to control the rotation - or chirality - of "magnetic tornadoes" in way that could enable the writing and reading of digital information with greater sensitivity, reliability and efficiency.

Source

Argonne National Laboratory Paper

Removing Heavy Metals from Blood

South Korean scientists may have found a way to remove dangerous heavy metals such as lead from blood by using specially designed magnetic receptors.

The receptors bind strongly to lead ions and can be easily removed, along with their lead cargo, using magnets, they wrote in an article in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, a leading chemistry journal.

Source