What Is This? [What Is This]

Some people are masters of this item, while others are—willingly or unwillingly—its slaves. With a little bit of dust, we can see its inner workings laid bare. What oh what could it be?
Try a credit card covered with magnetized rust particles.


As you can see, the stored data on the card's magnetic strip has been revealed by way of a science experiment. Using nothing more than fine iron powder or iron oxide, a magnet and the aforementioned credit card, 'Anaglyph' was able to reveal the nitty gritty details on a friend's frequent flyer card:

First of all, you will notice that Gilbert's card has three horizontal magnetic bands. This is the standard for all swipe cards. In most cases, information is recorded on one, or sometimes two of these bands. The two outside bands are called high density tracks and contain data at 210 bits per inch. If you know anything about computers, you will realise that the term 'high density' here is relative: 210 bits per inch, by modern data standards, is pretty damn lousy. To give you some idea, one of these tracks can carry about 79 x 6bit alphanumeric characters. Your credit card would typically have, on track 1, your name, your card number and an expiry date

Kind of primitive. No wonder the Japanese have been swiping their phones at vending machines all these years.

[Gizmodo via Tethered Cow via Boing Boing]

The Most Magnetic Material Yet [Magnets]

Iron cobalt was the most magnetic material on Earth until physicists created what's in this man's hands. It's an iron and nitrogen compound which is 18 percent more magnetic and potentially disproves theories about how magnetic a material can be.

Jianping Wang, a physicist at the University of Minnesota, created the compound, but he's actually not the first to do so:

In 1996, researchers from the Central Research Laboratory of Hitachi in Japan made the same iron and nitrogen compound. Their research also showed that the material exceeded limitations set by traditional theories. However, scientists were unable to duplicate their experiments.

Apparently Wang has 'taken special care to allow other scientists to duplicate his experimental setup' because of these failed attempts of the past. It's a shame that his experiment doesn't count as proof of the original compound's creation for some reason though.

[Gizmodo via MN Daily via Pop Sci]

New spongy material instantly hardens on exposure to magnetism [Materials]

A new kind of material (of which currently no actual picture exists anywhere) with the consistency of pudding that hardens instantly when exposed to magnetism has been developed by a team of researchers at Japan’s Yamagata University. And once the substance, a mix between high polymer and iron oxide granules, hardens, it can become up to 500 times stiffer than plastic.
The researchers say when the magnetic field is 300 milli-tesla strong, for example, the material hardens 300-fold in under one second. The iron oxide granules are spread randomly throughout the gel-like material, but when magnetized, they align in rows and stiffen the gel, which is made of more than 50% water.
The gel could be used in card and trains one day to dampen vibrations. Furniture makers could adjust the softness of chairs and other furniture.
[CrunchGear via Nikkei]

DIY Ferrofluid Is the Prettiest Mess You Could Make Today [DIY]

Ferrofluid is a beautiful mess of iron particles suspended in oil, but the beauty comes at a price of $165 a liter ($624.59 a gallon, for you Standard folks). Let's take the DIY route to this, shall we?

Before you run off to grab the magnetic ink developer, ferric chloride, or recycled cassette tapes needed to make it, let's review what ferrofluid is and how it works:

Basically there are plenty of uses for the liquid, in engineering, electronics, optics, and most importantly: art. Due to the oil portion of ferrofluid following the iron particles, you can control the substance with some strong magnets and make it dance around like in the video.
Spiffy, purty, and that was just scientific enough to pass any damages you cause off as a 'learning experience.' Check out PopSci for the details on just how to make a DIY version of the stuff while I ignore any bets on how much of a mess I'll make while trying each approach. [Gizmodo via PopSci]