There has been news of scientists levitating mice to study the effects of bone loss…never mind why they were doing it; how cool is that? A levitating mice!

The news article only says that magnetic fields were used to levitate the mice, but it doesn’t go into any details. Last time I studied biology and physics, living things aren’t very magnetic, so I had to find out if this is a hoax. Turns out it is possible, but it requires a very powerful magnet.

From wikipedia

A substance that is diamagnetic repels a magnetic field. All materials have diamagnetic properties, but the effect is very weak, and is usually overcome by the object’s paramagnetic or ferromagnetic properties, which act in the opposite manner. Any material in which the diamagnetic component is strongest will be repelled by a magnet, though this force is not usually very large.
Diamagnetic levitation can be used to levitate very light pieces of pyrolytic graphite or bismuth above a moderately strong permanent magnet. As water is predominantly diamagnetic, this technique has been used to levitate water droplets and even live animals, such as a grasshopper and a frog. However, the magnetic fields required for this are very high, typically in the range of 16 teslas, and therefore create significant problems if ferromagnetic materials are nearby.

The alleged first living animal to be levitated by this technique was a frog Here’s a short video of one:

I wonder we’ll see this done to humans. The frog is levitated using 10 Tesla magnetic fields, so it would take a much stronger magnet to lift a human being–much stronger than the current strongest man made magnet which is only 45 Tesla.

Aside: Yogis in India claims have been able to levitate as a result of spiritual powers, but they weren’t being completely honest.