The University of Durham, in England, says it has perfected the first plastic magnet that works at room temperature. (The picture is from an earlier experiment at the University of Utah, published in Reactive Reports.)

The scientists were about to give up on their project when they decided to re-check their samples one more time, a month after making them. Turns out they took time to settle and as time went by all their batches showed traces of magnetism.

This is important on several levels:

• It means plastic hard drives that can be sturdier than the aluminum disks now in use.
• It means magnetic implants (cochleal transducers in ears, for instance) can be made of an organic material, so they won't be rejected by the body.
• Magnets can be made to measure by varying the composition of the material, rather than just adjusting the size of the magnet.

Chemistry, basic material science, remains at the heart of progress, and will help keep Moore's Law running far into the future.