Mystery particle could shrink your hard drive to the size of a peanut

[bananas]

Source: NBC News

A strange, newly discovered particle could shrink a laptop computer's hard drive to the size of a peanut and an iPod's drive to the size of a rice grain.

The particle, called a skyrmion, is more stable and less power-hungry than its conventional, magnetic cousin. Besides storing data in ultra compact media, skyrmions could lead to faster computers that combine storage with processing power and usher in smaller and smaller devices that have the same computing power as a desktop machine.

Kristen von Bergmann and her colleagues, led by Roland Wiesendanger at the University of Hamburg in Germany, report their findings in Thursday's issue of Science.

<snip>

Skyrmion-based electronics wouldn't just be smaller and more stable -- they'd use less power, noted Avadh Saxena, a physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In fact, the skyrmions require 100,000 times less power to manipulate than magnetic fields on a hard dive.

One factor that bodes well for building real drives is that the researchers didn't need to use any exotic substances for the magnetic film. "It's exciting that they used relatively conventional materials," said Ulrich Rössler, a physicist at the Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research in Dresden, Germany.

Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/science/mystery-particle-could-shrink-your-hard-drive-size-peanut-6C10879170

[midnight]

1. I love the next step "the next step is making a practical data storage device" With the cozy

relationship the U.S. and Germany have been sharing over the NSA issue...

[dipsydoodle]

2. size of a peanut ?

I have quite enough problems with squirrels as it is.

[Downwinder]

3. All of NSA's Utah installation will be out of date.

[cantbeserious]

4. Which Means The NSA Could Hide The Facility Anywhere

eom

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. It's worse: Large portions could be copied into a suitcase. Copies will proliferate.

How long till NSA data shows up on the black market?

[Fumesucker]

8. Who's to say it hasn't already shown up on the black market?

The reason they're called black markets in the first place is because people for the most part don't run their mouths about it.

[Shivering Jemmy]

10. Technology is the enemy

Let's ban it.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

19. No.

[carla]

20. Technology is

a prosthesis. Our species is "handicapped" in terms of knowledge, our technology assists us in our quest for more knowledge. Without tech, our world would be incredibly different. In fact, tech is tools, so there are even other species that adapt to situations by altering their physical abilities. Unfortunately, we seem to lack in ethical and moral terms the depth we have developed in technology.

[yesphan]

26. +1 ^

[tclambert]

7. They could squirrel them away in hollow trees

and bury them in the yard.

[Martak Sarno]

14. Where to hide the new facility?

If they're interested, I have a suggestion where they could stick, er, hide the new facility! I can think of at least 537+ places off hand, and maybe a few dozen more!

And if they have trouble getting it "placed" there, a by-product of the Iraqi oil we're "sharing" with the Chinese and Russians could be most helpful!

Instructions would gladly be provided...at no additional charge!

[The Stranger]

23. Think about it going the other direction. NSA could store even more information about us.

Track our movements in real time -- and just update the Utah facility.

[PSPS]

18. What makes you think this isn't what will be used there?

The NSA already has computing power beyond what is commercially available.

[Hydra]

25. Funny, I was thinking they build the datacenter with this

Or whatever the next step is after.

Yottabytes? That's so last decade.

[Alamuti Lotus]

5. Nertz! That 3.5" 4TB I ordered a few days ago just shipped

I should have read this story earlier, could've canceled it in time. Those pesky Skyrmions, so untimely.

[Tab]

9. "One factor that bodes well... is that the researchers didn't need to use any exotic substances"

Yeaaahhhhh... on the other hand, it has to be cooled to nearly absolute zero to work, and they're going to have to make it work at room temperature to be of value. Otherwise I see a grain of rice surrounded by a refrigerator-sized (or larger) cooling system. All that power saved will go into cooling the thing.

[formercia]

11. The Big Print Giveth

The Small Print taketh away.

[Igel]

13. Ooh ... quantum superposition.

I really hate it when there's something sufficiently advanced that even the wiki blurb gets beyond my comprehension after a single paragraph. Q.v. "skyrmion".

It's worse when that single paragraph is short. Very short.

At least it comes back to "Skyrmions have been reported, but not conclusively proven, to be in Bose-Einstein condensates, superconductors, thin magnetic films and also chiral nematic liquid crystals."

In which case the hunt for room T skyrmions may boil down (or freeze up, depending on your point of view) to the search for a room temperature superconductor.

Odd, it's been more than 23 seconds since the Science article was posted and nobody's updated the Wiki page for skyrmions yet. Slackers.

[Lugal Zaggesi]

22. They already have room temperature superconductors

It's just that you need really, really cold rooms

About -140° C (-220° F).

[Thor_MN]

12. Hell, swimming in Lake Superior will shrink your hard drive to the size of an acorn.

I've known that for 50 years.

[SnowCritter]

15. HA!

Took off my shoes and waded in Lake Superior in mid-September once - once! Thought my feet were going to fall off!

[devils chaplain]

24. This technological development was code-named "The George Costanza Project" n/t

[Demoiselle]

29. Well said, tee hee.

I was going to ask if this post was metaphorical.

[Thor_MN]

32. My post? Quite literal, I'm afraid..

[RC]

16. Too bad global warming is making all this super cold electronics harder to use.

What they can get to work at 70°F may not work at the new room temperature of 80°F.

[AverageJoe90]

31. Umm.....wut? n/t

[cstanleytech]

17. Hmmm I am not going to hold my breath on this one.

Been way to make things in the news in regards to hard drives and their "future" that just never seem to be delivered on time if ever.

[eggplant]

21. Oh, please. As if the mechanical factors aren't important.

Anyone who thinks that the only reason we can't shrink hard drives down further is because of the limits of magnetic media has never seen the fragile clockwork that makes up the modern drive.

Try to imagine an electromechanical device "the size of a rice grain" that gets constant use.

[Katashi_itto]

27. Skyrmion is a newborn Skynet. Mark my words...We will have Terminators soon

[tabasco]

28. I want my flying car

the fuckers promised me.

[Safetykitten]

30. Now the hard drives will match the size of some people's brains.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

36. Why pick on the Tea Party so much?

It is not their fault that their genetic make up was caused by close relatives inbreeding for so many generations.

[IDemo]

33. The drives of the future are here already, and they don't spin

[madokie]

34. Its definitely F M

Already hard drives has shrunk from the first one I had which was a 20 meg that was bigger than the package that a 500 GB Toshiba USB 2.5 inch hard drive comes in.

[NickB79]

35. So theoretically I could be playing Skyrim

On a computer powered by skyrmions?

Mind. Blown.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

37. Google glasses take on a whole new perspective.