Back in the old days, refrigerators used toxic gases like ammonia or methyl chloride to keep things cool, and in recent decades, Freon was used until it was replaced by non-CFC alternatives. But could your milk and potato salad one day be cooled by magnets? Maybe so, according to a recent article in Science News, which explains how a team of researchers in Iowa have developed a new magnetic refrigerant material that uses the spin of electrons to generate a cooling effect. The technology requires few moving parts, so it can be simple, silent, and reliable. And with refrigerators in more than 99 percentĀ of all U.S. homes, this is one technology that may yield some pretty cool results.