MR fluids?

A grey blob oozes down the side of a laboratory beaker. It's heading for the table, but before it gets there a low hum fills the air. Someone just switched on an electromagnet. The goop stiffens, quivers, then carries on oozing only after the hum subsides.

Is it alive?

No, just magnetized.

"We call them magnetorheological fluids--or 'MR fluids' for short," says Alice Gast, a professor of chemical engineering at MIT. "They're liquids that harden or change shape when they feel a magnetic field."

The article then goes on to talk about applications in use today with MR fluids and how this research could one day be used by robots which they admit won't happen tomorrow.

This week, ISS Science Officer Don Pettit conducted the first experiments with MR fluids inside the glovebox. His two-hour "run" marked beginning of the InSPACE investigation, which will likely continue off and on throughout the month.

Meanwhile, some companies are already forging ahead with new magnetorheological devices. Lord Corporation of North Carolina, for example, is designing an MR washing machine. Magnetic dampers inside the machine will decrease noise and vibration--and save energy. They're also studying MR technology for seat belts and airbags in cars. Because MR fluids can generate large forces quickly and flexibly, they could be used by automakers to adjust the arresting force of a seatbelt to the size and weight of a passenger.

Saving lives and silencing washing machines--and that's just the beginning. Not bad for a bunch of grey oily goop.

You can find the full article here.