Levitation

I thought this was an interesting article:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1870161,00.html

In the Nature experiment, the research team began by placing a microscopically small sphere of gold on a glass surface. Gold and glass get along well enough and under the right circumstances will attract. But what they both like a whole lot more is a liquid called bromobenzene. When the researchers introduced a little bromobenzene to the other two materials, they both began drawing so much of it to them that the gold began to rise above the glass. In effect, it levitated on a thin bromobenzene film.

OK, it's not Houdini. The microscopic pas de deux isn't even visible to the naked eye. Still, the phenonemon is not as exotic as it might seem. Every time you ice skate, you experience something similar, as the shared properties of skate blade against ice create a thin film of water of a very particular thickness on which you, after a fashion, levitate. What makes the Harvard and NIH work so promising is its nano scale.