There are organisms that can use the magnetic field of the earth to navigate, including animals like honey bees and migratory birds, and some bacteria. Scientists have now learned more about how a ...

If shrunken down to micron size, a compass needle could wobble. (Courtesy: iStockphoto/tobias machhaus) A tiny magnetic needle just 10 μm long could be used to create a magnetic-field sensor that – if ...

The geomagnetic field is generated by fluid convection in Earth’s core. How this dynamo works is complicated, and the field that the core produces is not symmetric. This has been something of a ...

At some point during our primary school careers, most of us probably constructed a simple compass, often by floating a magnetized needle on a cork in a cup of water. The water in such a configuration ...