We're not going to front like we understand exactly how it works, but two IBM researchers in California have announced that they've gotten closer to controlling the orientation and magnetic spin of individual iron atoms on a copper surface, which would have huge implications for nanotech storage -- imagine the basic tech in your hard drive shrunk down the molecular level.
Andrew Kent, a physicist at New York University, spends most days running electricity through a magnet smaller in diameter than a single cell, trying to determine the lowest current at which an electron's spin changes orientation.