Pulled from NewScientist (www.newscientist.com) Nickel 'nanodots' could mean tiny hard drives Nanoscopic dots of nickel that could be used to store terabytes of data in a computer chip just a few centimetres wide have been created by US researchers. Each "nanodot" consists of a discrete ball of several hundred nickel atoms and can have one of two magnetic states. This allows them hold a single bit of information, as a "1" or a "0". In a conventional computer hard drive, information is stored on a disk coated with a magnetic material, and bits must be far enough apart not to interfere with each other. Nanodots should allow bits to be packed closer together as the dots are discrete units that are not structurally linked. Ashutosh Tiwari and Jagdish Narayan at North Carolina State University have created nickel nanodots measuring about 5 nanometres in diameter - about 10 times smaller than those previously produced. Read more here: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996362 Donny Duncan http://www.computer-discounts-guide.com http://www.making-an-online-living.com http://www.satellitetv-reviews.com