Every animal on Earth may house the molecular machinery to sense magnetic fields, even those organisms that don't navigate or migrate using this mysterious 'sixth sense'.
Scientists working on fruit flies have now identified a ubiquitous molecule in all living cells that can respond to magnetic sensitivity if it is present in high enough amounts or if other molecules assist it.
"How we sense the external world, from vision, hearing through to touch, taste, and smell, are well understood,""But by contrast, which animals can sense and how they respond to a magnetic field remains unknown. This study has made significant advances in understanding how animals sense and respond to external magnetic fields - a very active and disputed field.
This molecule – a receptor in the retina of migrating birds called a cryptochrome – can sense light and magnetism, and it seems to work through quantumIn basic terms, when a cryptochrome absorbs light, the energy triggers one of its electrons, pushing it to occupy one of two spinning states, each of which is differently influenced by Earth's geomagnetic field.
This basic molecule is found at differing levels in all cells, and the higher the concentration, the more likely it is to impart magnetic sensitivity, even when cryptochromes are lacking.
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