Topic: =/\= great bbc piece on magnetism and the role of your eyes in sensing it.

[stoneyface]

turns out there is a light detecting protein in your eye that also can "sense" magnetism. and odd example of multitasking in the real world. most scientists know that nature just LOVES redundancy and redundant systems, but multitasking is not seen as much. read here for the full article and explanation:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13809144

[Bonk]

Cool story, but I begin to wonder if mainstream media reads any other journals than the series of rags that Nature publishes.  OK, with that out of my system...

Perhaps this may help explain the variable sense of direction in people. I have a good one, but if there is any "magnetoreception" going on, it is so well integrated that I am unaware of it.

Though I think some people are hypersensitive to magnetic and electric fields (and atmospheric ions). I suspect that drb is one such person, he finds certain types of air conditioners and electric motors highly irritating (perhaps disorienting?).

The eye is already amazing, now add in "magnetoreception"? Wow. I wonder where exactly in the eye this protein resides and what other sensory structures it interacts with to produce a signal? Probably questions these researchers are looking at, I imagine,

[stoneyface]

i know that humans also have an iron deposit in their noses that help find magnetic north as well. there was a study several years ago (maybe 10 or more) that showed "on average" (remember that everyone is different) that males have a larger deposit in the bridge of their nose than females. (this could easily be contributed to the smaller nature of women's bone structure. it is not a case of men > women) the study showed that because of the larger deposit, men tended to have a better sense of direction as related to magnetic north.

now take that info and add this new finding with the eye protein and you start to get a sense of how our direction sense works. (btw i have an awesome direction sense. take me someplace once and i can find my way back again easily. i also do not get lost as easily in new towns and such as i "follow my nose" as my dad always called it. turns out that was not too far from the truth! lol