Ends badly.
I once ran sound for a show in an old USO theater that had old-school dimmer packs that took up the entire back wall of the booth. When those things were energized… whoa. I cannot recall the sensation, and even in the moment I couldn’t directly perceive anything, but everybody in the room would just look around with eyes kinda wide.
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Mine is turned off.
exactly. and if this study isnt just a bunch of wishful thinking (not the first study which claims a “magnetic sense” in humans exists). thank you.
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Which we didn’t. I’m not aware of any primates, and certainly not any tree shrews, which properly “migrate”.
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No wonder Trans-Cranial Magnetic Stimulation cures depression. Makes you feel really strongly that you know the right direction.
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Hmmm maybe we should look for a correlation between people getting lost in the bush, and recent MRI scans.
Also I wonder about jet lag effects. Maybe the pitch of the field (up or down) is something which we sense in an unconscious way. Like oh damn now I have to re-calibrate my compass again.
Ever wondered what a belly button does?
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This reminds me of an experiment where subjects were given a belt which vibrated in the direction of magnetic north. Those wearing it reported an improved sense of direction.
A varying degree of competence and intensity of this more subtle natural magnetic sense might go some way to account for the variability in people’s ability to not get lost.
Or it might not. shrug
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Well, it’s certainly a lode off my mind.
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I like a well-fielded pun.
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So does this mean all fMRI studies are…wrong?
I work around a thumping great big magnet almost every day, have done for years, and I don’t feel anything. Unless I move too quickly - that’s not nice - but old age is helping with that. Sometimes I expect to find a mass of zombie-like people walking in circles around the building where I work (or maybe walking against the wall) but it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe they’re all walking off in the opposite direction?
It’s a very efficient lint trap.
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I’ve been reading Tristan Gooley recently (The “Outdoor Signs…” one. There are sufficient of his titles to wonder if there is much repetition/overlap, but the one I"m reading is full of goodness.)
There are many natural ways to tell north, and many (ok, some?) people probably use some of them subconsciously. I vaguely recall he mentioned Australian Aboriginal people in one context but cannot find the reference and I’m only halfway through it. But I’d wager that any Aboriginal person used to living in the bush could tell you north instinctively but would have to think about WHY they knew it was north and what indicators they used, if you asked them. They might have magnetic sensitivity, but I’d also wager that would never be one of the indicators they said they used. There are so many other ways of knowing north in any natural setting that magnetic sensitivity might almost be redundant.
RIGHT! NOW!
(Oh, damn, I meant left. The magnetic field was down, not up. Sorry. Go round the block.)
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Veritasium just visited a lab doing this research. Not sure if it is the same lab as in the OP. But gives some behind the scenes of the process.
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My sense of our 24 hour clock is way stronger in me than my sense of direction. I can feel what time it is, but I have to suss out what direction that I’m facing.
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Early mammals include the vertebrates, and Mammals descended from the first Vertebrates (which include fish and the first bird-like creatures). Perhaps I should have said Vertebrates?
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Mammals descend directly from the Therapsids, many of which would have been large-bodied herbivores, and therefore likely candidates to be migratory, but that was a very long time ago, and I think your point about the dubiousness of the evolutionary explanation stands.
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