Until now domestic manufacturers and research institutions have only been focused on the concept that magnetic resonance could be used for wireless power supplies. Companies like Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp. of Japan have worked out details on extending the range of this technology toward practical applications.

MIT neuroscientists believe they have isolated the brain region — just behind the right ear — where moral judgements take place. And they can suspend someone’s ability to judge right from wrong, simply by generating a magnetic field near the same spot where many of us hold our cellular phones and wireless, Bluetooth, headsets.

Johnny Cash can’t have known about carbon nanotubes when he sang about rings of fire, but MIT scientists have shown how they can create electrical current—about 100 times as much energy per unit of weight as lithium-ion batteries.