Traditional MRI technology uses a large magnetic field to produce very high quality diagnostic images.

"And that’s one of the appeals, but what my team is trying to do is kind of work at the other end of the spectrum with regard to the magnetic field and drop it to very, very weak magnetic fields."

Physicist Michelle Espy of the Los Alamos National Laboratory says that’s because large magnetic fields require multi-million dollar infrastructure and many Third World countries and combat support hospitals for our troops do not have access to MRI.

"So if an MRI is required to someone who’s injured in the battlefield, for example, they have to be transported often thousands of miles to a major medical center. We’ve also been talking about a more humanitarian direction to take the system in Third World countries. So, we’re trying to do MRI at much, much lower fields because it’s cheaper, lighter, easier to move these systems around, which should make them more accessible to a lot of people."