Posted on 04/30/2008 3:31:24 PM PDT by blam
Birds can 'see' the Earth's magnetic field
18:00 30 April 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Catherine Brahic
It has been debated for nearly four decades but no one has yet been able to prove it is chemically possible. Now good evidence suggests that birds can actually "see" the lines of the Earth's magnetic field.
Klaus Schulten of the University of Illinois, proposed forty years ago that some animals – including migratory birds – must have molecules in their eyes or brains which respond to magnetism. The problem has been that no one has been able to find a chemical sensitive enough to be influenced by Earth's weak geomagnetic field.
Now Peter Hore and colleagues at the University of Oxford have found one.
Cryptochromes are a class of light-sensitive proteins found in plants and animals, and are thought to play a role in the circadian clock, in regulating plant growth, and timing coral sex. A few years ago, Henrik Mouritsen of the University of Oldenburg in Germany showed that they were present in the retinal neurons of migratory garden warblers, and that these cells were active at dusk, when the warblers were performing magnetic orientation.
Weak but radical
Cryptochromes have not yet been made in the lab and obtaining them is difficult, but Hore's team has now shown that a related molecule – a carotenoid-porphyrin-fullerene triad – with similar chemical properties to cryptochromes is sensitive to weak magnetism.
Like cryptochromes, the CPF molecule, made by Devens Gust of Arizona State University, US, is stimulated by light of specific wavelengths to produce two free radicals. Hore found that he could control the concentrations of each free radical in a solution of CPF by applying a magnetic field.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
With magic mushrooms I can see the wind.
I serve an awesome God!
Interesting. Now if they could only see glass windows.
interesting...
Aha! Seems like the secret would be to put a small amount of magnetic iron ore in the glass...
coral sex
Shouldn’t that be co-oral sex??
Is that sex between choir members?
I give up, it’s strictly tongue in cheek.
“I wonder how birds, that rely on the magnetic field to migrate, cope when the magnetic field flips poles? “
They fly upside down.
a carotenoid-porphyrin-fullerene triad
I hope your tests are open book.
What keeps them from crashing into the ground up there in northern Canada where the lines of force all intersect at magnetic north?? Other theories posit that they can hear the ocean waves and steer by that sound. Others say they steer by the position of the sun or stars.. In short..Global Warming all over again. Just another cry for government funding.
I love birds....but THAT was funny!
read tonight bump
Garmin GPS Unit: Bank Left & Fly 2,000 miles...
Or backwards...
I dunno about government funding. I have a German
cousin who retired from being a prof at Duke and
who spent his professional life on “How do homing pigeons home, and related questions” He’s in his 70’s now and living in Oberkirche, Germany, but if I see him again, I’ll ask him how much gummint money he got.
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