Magnetism

Quantum chemical reaction behind birds’ internal compass

Chemistry World: Researchers have discovered a radical-pair reaction in the eyes of migrating robins that could explain how the birds use Earth’s magnetic field to navigate. Covering up to 200miles (320km) per night, some UK robins – not all of which…

The rise of ferrofluids

Chemistry World: Rocket scientists at the Nasa Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, US, were working day and night. It was 1963 and they were testing hundreds of different combustion chamber designs and injectors for liquid hydrogen engines, trying to iron out problems with combustion stability that could thwart efforts to…

Simulation Reveals How Magnetism Helps Form Planets

Quanta Magazine: We like to think of ourselves as unique. That conceit may even be true when it comes to our cosmic neighborhood: Despite the fact that planets between the sizes of Earth and Neptune appear to be the most common…

Muon Results Throw Physicists’ Best Theories into Confusion

Scientific American: Physicists should be ecstatic right now. Taken at face value, the surprisingly strong magnetism of the elementary particles called muons, revealed by an experiment this month, suggests that the established theory of fundamental particles is incomplete. If the discrepancy…