Using the strongest materials known to man, scientists are building the most powerful electromagnet in the world -- one that won't blow up a split second after it's turned on.The entire magnet will be a combination of coil sets weighing nearly 18,000 pounds and powered by jolts from a massive 1,200-megajoules motor generator. Once activated, the new magnet should be about two million times more powerful than the average refrigerator magnet.

"The new magnet at the High Field Lab is a fantastic leap forwards in terms of our capability as a scientific community to explore materials under extreme conditions," said Ian Fisher, a scientist at Stanford University."In several cases one needs to go to these sorts of extremes to fundamentally understand materials" used in high-temperature superconductors and other applications, said Fisher. The electromagnet consists of two parts. The outer section, or outsert, will be a cylinder, 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) in diameter and 1.5 meters tall, and solid except for a small hole, less than 8 inches wide, bored through the middle.
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Will Olympics Be Magnet for Human Traffickers?

"Walk in a punter. Walk out a rapist," potential sex buyers are cautioned these days by posters in pubs and nightclubs in England. It's part of the "Blue Blindfold" campaign launched by the U.K. government in preparation for the country's 2012 Olympics. The drive is levelled against human trafficking, which often includes forcing women into prostitution.

In Athens during the 2004 Olympic Games, human trafficking cases nearly doubled, according to the Greek Ministry of Public Safety. Government officials and human rights activists in Canada are worried that Vancouver's 2010 Olympics could become a similar magnet for traffickers and their victims.But Canada has yet to successfully prosecute a single person for human trafficking, although the country has been singled out as a major link in the grim global industry in a U.S. State Department report. Human trafficking, says the report, is the world's third most lucrative international crime business after drugs and arms smuggling, and Vancouver is a hub. The coming Olympics will only fuel the trade, predict authorities.Not only in Athens but at the soccer World Cup in Germany, "there was definitely a demonstrated increase in the exploitation of women in relation to those events," says Robin Pike, head of B.C.'s Office to Combat Trafficking in Persons (OCTIP), an arm of the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General.
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Biomedical Engineering Study Demonstrates the Healing Value of Magnets

Magnets have been touted for their healing properties since ancient Greece. Magnetic therapy is still widely used today as an alternative method for treating a number of conditions, from arthritis to depression, but there hasn’t been scientific proof that magnets can heal.Lack of regulation and widespread public acceptance have turned magnetic therapy into a $5 billion world market. Hopeful consumers buy bracelets, knee braces, shoe inserts, mattresses, and other products that are embedded with magnets based on anecdotal evidence, hoping for a non-invasive and drug-free cure to what ails them. “The FDA regulates specific claims of medical efficacy, but in general static magnetic fields are viewed as safe,” notes Thomas Skalak, professor and chair of biomedical engineering at U.Va.
Skalak has been carefully studying magnets for a number of years in order to develop real scientific evidence about the effectiveness of magnetic therapy.

Skalak’s lab leads the field in the area of microcirculation research—the study of blood flow through the body’s tiniest blood vessels. With a five-year, $875,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Skalak and Cassandra Morris, former Ph.D. student in biomedical engineering, set out to investigate the effect of magnetic therapy on microcirculation.
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Kim Wilde fronts Magnet's green kitchen drive

With bleach-blond hair and all, our favourite British pop-legend, Kim Wilde, has joined the Kitchen Ecolution. Don't worry, we didn't know such thing existed either. Basically, the 80s star has shed her pink lipstick, turned domestic and joined forces with kitchen brand Magnet to try to make us more eco-friendly in our kitchens. Magnet and Wilde came up with Eight Simple Steps for Going Green in the Kitchen 2008. These include incorporating recycling gadgets in the kitchen to make it easier to recycle waste; buying energy-saving appliances; creating a kitchen garden; checking leaking taps (and fixing them, we suppose?); buying eco-friendly products such as organic food and non-toxic cleaning products; turning appliances off; and composting of course.

The final step -- called THINK, THINK, THINK -- is going green by supporting Magnet, as it donates ￡100 to The Carbon Trust for every sale of its green Urban Citrique kitchen during the spring sale. And it gives a discount on recycling bins.While we appreciate these initiatives, we do think Magnet and Wilde conveniently gloss over the fact that the kitchen company could help us green our kitchens much more by developing sustainable kitchen cabinets, worktops and other kitchen hardware. We look forward to seeing that reclaimed or FSC-certified wood kitchen, Magnet.
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New Magnetic Drum Separators From Eriez

The new Electromagnetic and Permanent Magnetic Drum separators from Eriez Magnetics, Erie, Pa., enable automatic, continuous separation of ferrous materials from high-volume and heavy-duty applications, the company says. Designed for the removal of ferrous material from shredded automobiles, bottom ash, slag and other recyclable scrap, including chips, turnings and stampings, these drums offer a solution to difficult processing challenges, the company adds. “Eriez engineers designed these drums to stand up to even the harshest conditions,” says Dan Norrgran, Eriez heavy industries market manager.

Two types of Electromagnetic drums are available. The All Electro Agitator type uses a deep field rectangular–core pickup magnet to reach out and grasp the ferrous, and a second rectangular-core agitator magnet to flip or agitate the ferrous, cleaning it of contaminants like loose mud, paper, fluff and trash. A double drum scheme with counter rotation provides maximum cleaning. Eriez also builds a non-agitating transfer design that uses a deep field radial pickup magnet to convey or transfer the ferrous around the drum shell to the discharge area. When used in top feed schemes, these drums can provide maximum recovery, the company says. Eriez Scrap Drums also feature wider magnetic fields to handle increased tonnages.