Search A Light In The Darkness

Saturday 19 January 2013

Do We Have a 'Magnetic' Sixth Sense?

Learning Mind: Researchers at the Medical School of the University of Massachusetts, led by neuroscience and neurobiology professorSteven Reppert, who published their study in the journal Nature communications, according to the BBC and The New York Times, discovered that a protein in the retina of the human eye can perceive magnetic fields. The unexpected discovery opens once again a neglected chapter of the biology of consciousness that has to do with the so-called “magnetic sense”. In all the animals of our planet, the photosensitive chemical reactions involve an ancient protein, the flavoprotein(cryptochrome), which plays an important role in understanding the Earth’s magnetic field. Experiments on Drosophila flies have shown that these proteins function as light-dependent magnetic sensors...read more>>>...