Not flipping out

Scientists have shown for the first time how single atoms may be able to magnetically encode single bits of information.

ONE WAY OR THE OTHER. An iron atom (silver sphere in this artist’s impression) on a surface has a few preferred orientations (red arrows), and will require a push to switch from one to the other. IBM

Hard disks store data by magnetizing small domains of a disk’s surface so that the magnetic axis points in one of two opposing directions.