Narrator: This is Science Today. Nuclear magnetic resonance is the physical phenomenon that underlies its more modern incarnation, magnetic resonance imaging or MRI. Scientist Alexander Pines of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory describes what nuclear magnetic resonance means.

Pines: Nuclear, because it has to do with the nucleus, not radioactive properties; magnetic because it has to do with magnetism and applied magnetic fields; and resonance because of the characteristic resonance frequencies that constitute the spectrum of that molecule in the field.

Narrator: Pines, a pioneering nuclear magnetic resonance researcher, has discovered a new technique called remote detection, which would improve the sensitivity and versatility of MRIs.

Pines: What one is doing in remote – one is doing a freeze frame of the different instance and each different instant is encoded, taken out, then the whole thing is assembled into the reconstructive, time dependent signal or sound.

Narrator: Pines adds that such unrestrained technology opens up a new realm of imaging possibilities. For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.