Welcome to the
Electricity of Life,
brought to you by The
Thunderbolts Project™
at Thunderbolts.info
As EU theorists examine
the ecology of space
the distribution and interactions
of structures in the cosmos
we may forget to ponder
what electromagnetic
ecology has shaped us,
the observers.
Let's look at the relationship
between organisms
and this massive magnetic
sphere they live upon.
In the 1980's Francis Ivanhoe, an
anthropologist and pharmacologist,
catalogued an
intriguing observation
while studying Paleolithic human
skulls from the northern hemisphere.
He noticed a correlation between periods
of increased geomagnetic field strength
and sudden gains in
cranial capacity.
This also coincided with two notable
periods of cognitive innovation
such as the widespread
domestication of fire.
Dr. Ivanhoe published such findings
in the Journal of Human Evolution
and the Journal
of Bioelectricity.
In 1990 he co-authored one study
with a distinguished fellow
anthropologist Dr. Eugene Hamill.
By that time they had confirmed
the geomagnetic intensity -
braincase expansion relationship in
populations throughout East Asia,
Europe, North Africa
and North America.
Ivanhoe posited that the strength
of the geomagnetic field
was queueing growth hormone
production through the hippocampus.
Its upper section
called Amin's Horn
is an arch with one-way nerve
traffic driven by a strong current.
It might be acting as a
transducer, he thought,
which feels the strength of
the Earth's magnetic field
and gives input to regulate
growth hormone activity.
Ivanhoe also pointed out
that among primate species
we humans are distinctive in
the size of our hippocampus
and the development of its
connections with the hypothalamus.
Professor and research
director Michael Levin
cites Ivanhoe's finding and
many others of consequence
in his summary of Bio-
electromagnetics in Morphogenesis.
But do species on this planet show
a capacity to more actively sense
the magnetosphere around them?
This is clearly the case.
In a tank of water
surrounded by magnetic coils,
four scientists from the
University of North Carolina
recreated the magnetic traits of two
different real-life locations on the earth.
Sea turtle hatchlings of
the loggerhead species
were put in a harness that
recorded their swimming direction.
The turtles swam in highly divergent directions
depending on the traits of the field
heading Southwest in the
East Atlantic field
and North East in the
West Atlantic field.
These directions are also consistent
with optimal migratory trajectories
for navigating the North
Atlantic subtropical gyre.
It is an intriguing insight
for the scientific community
to observe the creatures of this world
responding to artificially-created features
of particular magnetic topography
with instinctual responses.
During the 80s and 90s, Robin Baker
at the University of Manchester
published a series of experiments and
discussions on human magnetoreception.
Blindfolded students were
equipped with headbands
either containing magnets or
identical bars of non-magnetic brass.
The students were driven through
the town in a maze like fashion
and out along a straight highway
where he stopped to have
them write on cards,
their guess of the
direction back to the school.
Next he drove them to another location
where he had the students guess again.
The students with fake
magnets around their heads,
their magnetic sense
presumably unimpaired,
had been able to guess the direction of the
school with a surprising degree of accuracy.
Meanwhile, students with real
magnets around their heads
had a significantly
impaired direction sense.
Pigeons are a favorite subject
of research on magnetoreception.
Recent experiments studying
the capacity of pigeons
to navigate natural
magnetic anomalies
have confirmed how strongly the species
feels the Earth's magnetic features.
In the case of one series of
experiments at magnetic anomalies,
some manner of magneto-
receptive cells in their beaks
appeared to be their first
choice of guidance system.
Pigeons which had this tissue
of their beak anesthesized
were oblivious to the magnetic anomaly
and successfully flew off rather easily.
Pigeons in the control group whose
cells had not been anesthesized
flew haphazardly
about with confusion.
On a rather individual basis these
pigeons came to reason out the problem
and presumably disregarded their magnetic
sense in order to leave the area.
So what does this
experiment tell us?
Well, I'm sure many in the
audience are surprised
that you can anesthesize
part of a bird's beak
but that's besides the point.
It is of course fascinating to contemplate
what life on this world feels like
to some of the other
species around us.
For those in the field of conservation,
who would apply their scientific skills
in stewardship of the
biodiversity of this planet,
the topic of magnetic ecology
is something to consider;
particularly the
biological accuracy
with which life forms perceive
the geomagnetic markers
that they base their
behaviors upon.
Returning to the lab of the
North Carolina biologists,
the team has found that the
location of loggerhead turtle nests
varies in accordance
with geomagnetism.
The researchers analyzed the data of
nesting sites in 12 counties in Florida
over a 19 year time span.
Specifically, they found
that nests placement varies
in accordance with
inclination changes;
inclination being the angle
of the Earth's magnetic field
where it enters the ground.
Unfortunately, a previous conservation practice
was to protect turtle nests from predators
using cages of galvanized steel.
These cages have an
unintended side effect
of altering field inclination within
them at about 4% at the bottom
and 20% at the top.
In an experiment that is likely to arouse
ambivalent feelings from PETA members,
the conservationists altered the magnetic
field around turtle eggs using magnets.
They found that turtles raised
in this distorted magnetic field
exhibited navigational ability
that was no better than chance.
Their nearby siblings, hatched at about the
same time in magnetically unobstructed nests,
retained their usual powers
of magnetic guidance.
Concerning the cellular mechanisms by which
our planet's electromagnetic field is felt,
organisms likely use multiple
biological systems operating in tandem.
The primary challenge in understanding how
creatures biologically detect magnetism
lies in the complexity
of living systems.
Our human mind, with all its
particular expectations,
has had some difficulty deducing where in
the body we should look for this sense
and what structures we
should expect to find.
Magnetoreceptive systems
have been clearly verified on the backs
of magnetically sensitive bacteria
but magnetoreception
in complex organisms
has been evidenced in places as
diverse as the eyes and the ears,
often in the same organism.
The idea of magnetoreceptive
cells in the beaks of pigeons
was recently thought
to be a false lead
but experiments on pigeons neuroanatomy and
behavior when their beak is anesthesized
would seem to conclude otherwise.
In our next episode we will explore more
behaviors and specific biological mechanisms
through which we can observe
evolved connections
between life-forms and the
planets on which they live.
Has this glimpse of the literature
excited you about biophysics
and the scope of science today?
Learn additional information in the Thunder-
blog post which inspired this video
and check out the links
in the description
to leap into learning more
about the Electricity of Life.
For continued episodes of the
Electricity of Life series
stay tuned to
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