World's First Practical Plastic Magnet

Stopmotioncleaverman writes "New Scientist is reporting that scientists at the University of Durham in the UK have created the world's first plastic magnet to work at room temperature from two compounds, emeraldine base polyaniline (PANi) and tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ). In 2001, scientists in Nebraska created a plastic magnet, but it only worked at 10 Kelvin. Most notably from the article - "One of the most likely applications is in the magnetic coating of computer hard discs, which could lead to a new generation of high-capacity discs". This story is also being reported in lots of other places."

Comments

Obligatory

[CaptPuff]

I for one welcome our plastic robot overlords... of the non-vibrating kind...

I have this image..

[hexMonkey]

of Michael Jackson stuck to a lamppost

Plastic Fantastic

[Anonymous Coward]

So this is going to confuse poor operators of MRI machines then. Now they can't even take plastic stuff in. They'll have to go in naked.

Mmmmm Naked Nurses :)

Re:Plastic Fantastic

[Lord Kano]

Mmmmm Naked Nurses :)

My grandmother and ex-wife are nurses. The naughty nurse fantasy was ruined for me.

LK

Coming soon: Refrigerator Magnet Barbie

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoohoo! In 2007, you'll be able to attach Barbie to the fridge.

Cool!

[TheDigitalOne]

Does this mean that I can now stick my floppy discs to the refrigerator without wiping out the data?

Heh :)

Ohdear...

[tigress]

This is going to have some serious implications on the world's superhero balance of power.

As a resident of Durham I should point out...

[levell]

This article might be a tad misleading, most days room temperature here is about 10 Kelvin if you leave a window open.

(For people that don't understand the Kelvin temperature scale this is not true and is in fact a bad attempt at humour)