Category Archive

the last Neurocolloquium (24th July) of this summer semester was about magnetic orientation in birds and other animals. some animals just have it all! Homing Pigeons seem to be endowed with the ability to use both sources of geomagnetic information i.e. magnetic inclination and polarity which provide them with positional and directional information respectively. moreover, they are also bestowed with both types of magneto-reception (which are highly hypothetical & controversial): 1) the use of magnetite-like structures, which have apparently been found within the neurofilaments in the skin of their upper beaks that allow ambient magnetic field to be picked up and 2) the light-dependent photo-pigment process that involves the conversion of singlet electrons to their triplet stage when the alignment of the pigment molecules are not perpendicular to the magnetic field.
(if you didn’t quite get the above?don’t worry! it’s only theory and jargon i jotted down during the seminar.)
it is known that many species of birds rely on such magnetic orientation for their migration, however some insects, reptiles, and mammals also adopt the use of a magnetic compass. interestingly, primates don’t seem to belong to such a group of magneto-sensing creatures, but it’s probably a blessing, for imagine we might get physically repelled by those to whom we might be “phermonongically” attracted or we will never be able to get to places where the magnetic field is not appropriate to attract our presence! and the world might contain spinning humans, desperately trying to get a grip on their bearings!