“The nation that controls magnetism will control the universe,” famed fictional detective Dick Tracy predicted back in 1935. Probably an overstatement, but there’s little doubt the nation that leads the development of advanced magnetoelectronic or “spintronic” devices is going to have a serious leg-up on its Information Age competition. A smaller, faster and cheaper way to store and transfer information is the spintronic grand prize and a key to winning this prize is understanding and controlling a  multiferroic property known as “spontaneous magnetization.”