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related discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=814446

This is pretty incredible. I'm curious as to what sort of engineering hurdles keep this technology from being scaled up. I remember hearing about this via Michio Kaku on one of the shows he did many months back. Anyone have an idea of how this technology works or scales?

It works based on the diamagnetism of water. Water has a very small response to magnetic fields. As a result, if you apply a large enough field, you can exert a significant force.

The scaling problems are that this requires massive magnetic field (even for mice). Generating such things is nontrivial.

> They decided to mildly sedate the next mouse they levitated, which seemed content with floating.

In unrelated news, NASA is now attaching astronauts to an IV drip of what they will only label as "happy juice".

Mice Levitated in Lab