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(PhysOrg.com) -- Custom modifications of equipment are an honored tradition of the research lab. In a recent paper, two materials scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology describe how a relatively simple mod of a standard scanning electron microscope (SEM) enables a roughly 10-fold improvement in its ability to measure the crystal structure of nanoparticles and extremely thin films. By altering the sample position, they are able to determine crystal structure of particles as small as 10 nanometers.

I’ve mentioned magnetic bacteria a couple of times now, so I got quite excited when Lucas Brouwers alerted me to a recent paper in Science (ref below) that explored a whole new group of magnetic bacteria.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Not to pick up electrons, but tweezers made of electrons.

(PhysOrg.com) -- At the smallest scales, magnetism may not work quite the way scientists expected, according to a recent paper in Physical Review Letters by Rafal Oszwaldowski and Igor Zutic of the University at Buffalo and Andre Petukhov of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.