Thread: Human Magnetoreception

I've always been fascinated with navigation, particular orienteering, not because it helped me get around the woods, but because I learned it almost two decades after I first started venturing into the woods.

I've never been lost (although I have been momentarily disoriented), and seem to have an innate "whoops!" factor which alerts me if I've taken a wrong turn somewhere. I've never thought of it as anything more than visual memory, particularly after college (mid-80s) claimed there was no evidence of human magnetoreception.

Now, however, there is: "Human eye protein senses Earth's magnetism". Science & Environment (BBC News). 21 June 2011.

The jury's out as to whether it's presence in the human eye has the requisite sensory support structure to allow it to perform magnetoreception in humans as it does in flies, but it's definitely an intriguing idea!

Interesting one Mugaliens. Somewhere I read that humans actually have about 17 senses, although other sources say 3, 9, 21, 33 etc.

LINK: Sense - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I definitely have a bs sensor. Weirdly enough it gets quiet when I come here.

Originally Posted by grapes

I definitely have a bs sensor. Weirdly enough it gets quiet when I come here.

To be fair, Ray's Wiki-link lists echolocation as a non-human trait, yet a few blind people use echolocation (yes, actually emitting clicks) to detect objects in their path. Some can even identify larger objects, or play catch.

Originally Posted by mugaliens

To be fair, Ray's Wiki-link lists echolocation as a non-human trait, yet a few blind people use echolocation (yes, actually emitting clicks) to detect objects in their path. Some can even identify larger objects, or play catch.

To be even more fair, the echolocation entry discusses that:

Certain animals, including bats and cetaceans, have the ability to determine orientation to other objects through interpretation of reflected sound (like sonar). They most often use this to navigate through poor lighting conditions or to identify and track prey. There is currently an uncertainty whether this is simply an extremely developed post-sensory interpretation of auditory perceptions or it actually constitutes a separate sense. Resolution of the issue will require brain scans of animals while they actually perform echolocation, a task that has proven difficult in practice.

Blind people report they are able to navigate and in some cases identify an object by interpreting reflected sounds (esp. their own footsteps), a phenomenon which is known as human echolocation.

When does a new use for old senses become a new sense? Good question.

I saw a TV program with blind people using clicks for echolocation. Fascinating stuff!

One guy could ride a bike at normal speed in traffic.

One woman was able to say there is something about ten feet away in that direction which is about the dimensions of a telephone pole - it was exactly where she pointed and was a tree of the dimensions she described. Or did I get that the wrong way around?

Wrong way? You mean she might've said tree, and it was actually a telephone pole?

BTW, was she blindfolded? Call me skeptical, but if she could see it, I'm less impressed.

Originally Posted by grapes

Wrong way? You mean she might've said tree, and it was actually a telephone pole?

BTW, was she blindfolded? Call me skeptical, but if she could see it, I'm less impressed.

If I remember correctly, she was blind. I think the show was produced by Stan Lee and had a title something like 'Stan Lee's Supermen'. They traveled the world looking at people who had unique abilities. Besides the one's mentioned by Ray, I remember a show where a guy could have electricity go through his body to operate toasters or lights among other things....

There are some people who can swim in ice cold water for long distances at temperatures that would quickly send the average person imediately into hypothermia

Originally Posted by David E. Eaton Sr.

If I remember correctly, she was blind. I think the show was produced by Stan Lee and had a title something like 'Stan Lee's Supermen'. They traveled the world looking at people who had unique abilities. Besides the one's mentioned by Ray, I remember a show where a guy could have electricity go through his body to operate toasters or lights among other things....

As for the electricity thing, I'm not impressed. Voltage is one thing. Current is another. Whenever a voltage differential is applied to human tissue, it's that differential and the tissue's resistance which determines how much current flows, according to V=I*R i.e. I=V/R. Source. Resistance can vary significantly among humans. Furthermore, if the resistance of a human is, say, 50 ohms, and the resistance of an appliance is 490 ohms, just 1/10th the current will flow through both in series than would flow through the human if hooked up to the voltage alone.