1.   Instruments would include a metal detector, a magnetometer for detecting the magnetic properties of metal-bearing rock and a spectrometer for examining the chemical composition of samples.

2.   Lodestones, rocks with strong magnetic properties, were the agents of choice then.

3.   The research will take advantage of the fact that most materials on Earth, including the human body, have a magnetic property.

4.   Their purpose is to collect windblown dust with magnetic properties as part of studies of the evolution of soil on the surface of Mars.

5.   Together, the rings and the wires inverted both the electrical and the magnetic properties of the light.

6.   But they questioned the accuracy of the dating method, which relies on variations in magnetic properties of the surrounding rocks.

7.   The researchers recently re-examined the tools and used new tests to more precisely date them, including measurements of changes in the magnetic properties of the surrounding rock layers.

8.   This yielded information about the magnetic properties of materials at the atomic level, opening up an entirely new field of study.