Can Humans Sense Magnetic Storms?
Close your eyes and relax. Daydream about something pleasant. In this state your brain is filled with “alpha waves,” a type of electrical brainwave associated with wakeful relaxation.
Now try it during a geomagnetic storm. It may not be so easy. A new study just published in the journal eNeuro by researchers at Caltech offers convincing evidence that changes in Earth’s magnetic field can suppress alpha waves in the human brain.
Schematic drawing of human magnetoreception test chamber at Caltech. This diagram was modified from the figure “Center of attraction” by C. Bickel (Hand, 2016) with permission.
Researchers have long known that living creatures can sense magnetic fields. For instance, honeybees, salmon, turtles, birds, whales, and bats use the geomagnetic field to help them navigate, and dogs can be trained to locate buried magnets.
“Many animals have magnetoreception, so why not us?” asks Connie Wang, Caltech graduate student and lead author of the eNeuro study.
To find out if humans can indeed sense magnetic fields, the researchers built an isolated radiofrequency-shielded chamber where participants sat in utter darkness for an hour. As magnetic fields shifted silently around the chamber, participants’ brain waves were measured using electrodes positioned at 64 locations on their heads.
In some of the 34 participants, alpha brainwaves decreased in power by as much as 60 percent in response to the shifting fields. Additional runs of the experiment showed that the effect was reproducible.
This video shows changes in alpha brainwave amplitude following rotations of an Earth-strength magnetic field. On the left, counterclockwise rotations induce a widespread drop in alpha wave amplitude. The darker the blue color, the more dramatic the drop.
Study co-authors Joseph Kirschvink and Shin Shimojo say this is the first concrete evidence of a new human sense: magnetoreception.
Remarkably, participants who experienced the changes reported no awareness of them. It appears to be a completely unconscious effect, never rising to the level of a conscious interruption. This led the researchers to suggest it may be vestigial, some remnant of an ancient ability to navigate using local magnetic cues.
“It is perhaps not surprising that we might retain at least some functioning neural components [of magnetoreception], especially given the nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle of our not-too-distant ancestors,” says Kirschvink.
“As a next step, we ought to try bringing this into conscious awareness,” adds Shimojo.
This strip chart recording from an old Greenwich Observatory magnetometer shows sudden changes in the magnetic field caused by an intense solar flare on Sept. 1, 1859. (From Cliver & Keer 2012, with permission of Solar Physics.)
Does this mean people may be able to sense geomagnetic storms? It’s unclear.
When coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and streams of solar wind reach Earth, they cause our planet’s magnetic field to shake, moving back and forth. During the Carrington Event of Sept. 1859, for instance, compass needles at mid-latitudes swung back and forth by several degrees (ref). The Caltech study didn’t look at such small changes, however. Magnetic fields inside their test chamber shifted plus or minus 90 degrees at least. As a result, we do not yet know if human magnetorecepton is sensitive enough to detect the more subtle changes typically associated with space weather.
By developing a robust methodology for testing magnetoreception, Kirschvink says he hopes their study can act as a roadmap for other researchers who are interested in replicating and extending this research. “The full extent of [magnetoreception] remains to be discovered,” he says.
The original research may be read here.
Read more at spaceweatherarchive.com
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jerry krause
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Hi Tony,
First, a serious question which I need to ask to confirm if what I believe to be true is actually true. Do magnetic fields exist in the absence of an electric field. I understand that there a permanent magnets but some where in the past didn’t they need to become magnets by an direct electric current?
My father was a successful water dowser and I too have felt the pull of the forked stick as I walked above the narrow water vein which out 25ft deep well penetrated and never went dry during the 1930’s even though the depth of later was less than three feet.
Today I believe well drillers use instruments to detect such underground streams of
water. So I consider it not a new idea that some people can detect magnetic (or electric) fields. Just as some people can sing an pitch and others (like myself) cannot knowing do this. In my case I have to consider it an accident if, or when, I do sing on pitch. Because I certainly do not know if it is happening.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Herb Rose
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Hi Jerry’
Energy produces magnetic fields. Matter produces electrical fields.
The accepted model of an atom, with s, p, an d shells was created using an assumption known to be wrong. These shells were established using the probability of finding an electron in an area, beginning with the assumption that the atom is not in a magnetic field. In a magnetic field an electron will follow a path perpendicular to the magnetic field. Our model of the atom does to exist anywhere on Earth, in the solar system, or anywhere we can see (light travels in electric and magnetic fields). All atoms have both electric and magnetic fields and these fields produce directional forces.
In iron and steel the crystal structures the magnetic fields can align producing a permanet magnet while in some stainless steel alloys and other metals the structure does not allow for this alignment The magnetic field exist in all atoms but in iron the magnetic field of the atoms can be rearranged by electrical currents or by another magnet inducing an aligned magnetic field..
A neutron molecule is matter without energy and has no magnetic field. A hydrogen atom is a neutron molecule combined with energy and has both a magnetic and electrical field. Since the hydrogen atom is the basic unit of all atoms its magnetic field will make all additional electrons follow a path perpendicular to that magnetic field.
Have a god day,
Herb
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