Ahead of an article to be published in tomorrow’s Science, IBM Research today announced the development of the world’s smallest magnetic memory bit by its Almaden research staff. At low temperatures, the magnetic storage approach requires only 12 magnetic atoms — making it at least 100 times denser than today’s hard disk drive and solid state memory chips — and is the result of antiferromagnetism. From the press release: Punctuating 30 years of nanotechnology research, scientists … have successfully demonstrated the ability to store information in as few as 12 magnetic atoms. This is significantly less than today’s disk drives, which use about one million atoms to store a single bit of information. The […]

The National Institutes’ of Health (NIH) Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) has issued a Request for Information (RFI) soliciting input into the deliberations of its newly established Working Group on Data and Informatics, which is seeking to investigate the management, integration, and analysis of large biomedical datasets. According to the announcement: The group will gather information from various sources, including internal and external data and informatics experts, and develop recommendations to present to the ACD and the NIH Director on policies regarding the management, integration, and analysis of research data and administrative data.   In its initial deliberations, the working group identified the following issues as important to consider when developing […]