January 16, 2025 at 12:53 pm

A Number Of Animals Are Able To Sense The Location Of Magnetic Fields

by Trisha Leigh

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Human beings like to think we have a “sixth sense” that can warn us of danger or impending doom – the hairs on the backs of our necks, etc.

Research shows, however, that a majority of animals actually have one, at least when it comes to sensing the location of magnetic fields.

Scientists have known for awhile that many species of migratory birds use the Earth’s magnetic field to get where they need to go. This new study includes fruit flies, though, which aren’t migratory but retain the same capacity.

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Researchers first questioned whether or not this was possible back in 2015, when they believed to observe fruit flies aligning themselves with magnetic fields at a cellular level.

This new paper states there are two methods by which the flies’ cells seem able to detect magnetic fields. The authors verified that photoreceptor proteins known as cryptochromes are used to detect magnetic fields.

Dr. Alex Jones and his fellow authors believe the cryptochromes accomplish this though quantum super-positioning.

“The absorption of light by the cryptochrome results in movement of an electron within the protein which, due to quantum physics, can generate an active form of cryptochrome that occupies one of two states. The presence of a magnetic field impacts the relative populations of the two states, which in turn influences the ‘active-lifetime’ of this protein.”

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The molecule flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) binds to the cryptochrome and creates a sensitivity to magnetism, but there is some question that the cryptochromes are not essential to the process. That is because fly cells that are engineered to express extra FAD were able to be sensitive to the presence of magnetic fields without the amplification by cryptochrome.

“This study may ultimately allow us to better appreciate the effects that magnetic field exposure might potentially have on humans.”

As of now, no other animals have been included in these studies and the researchers aren’t sure whether or not this could be left over genetic code from a time when

fruit flies were a migratory species.

And here I was thinking the only thing I ever needed to learn about fruit flies was how to get rid of them.

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