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September 28, 2012

FOR KIDS: Making rocks into magnets

Heat up a rock. Most likely, all you will get is a hot rock. But heat up the right type of stone to just the right temperature and you could end up with a magnet, scientists now report.

Long before people invented the small magnets that stick to refrigerators or the big magnets that pick up cars at the junkyard, people discovered natural magnets. The most magnetic and common type is a lodestone. It consists of a brownish-black mineral called magnetite. Lodestones are natural compasses: Suspend one by a thread or wire and it will rotate until its magnetic field is aligned with Earth’s magnetic field.

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