‘Humans can feel change in earth’s magnetic field’
◗ Researchers from both institute offered experimental evidence that human brain wav-es respond to in Earthstrength magnetic fields
Washington: Many people are able to unconsciously detect changes in the Earth’s magnetic fields, according to scientists who claim to have found concrete evidence of a new human sense — magnetoreception.
Researchers from California Institute of Technology in the US and the University of Tokyo in Japan offer experimental evidence that human brain waves respond to controlled changes in Earthstrength magnetic fields.
“Many animals have magnetoreception, so why not us?” said Connie Wang, lead author of the eNeuro study published in the journal eNeuro.
For example, honeybees, salmon, turtles, birds, whales, and bats use the geomagnetic field to help them navigate, and dogs can be trained to locate buried magnets.
It has long been theorised that humans may share a similar ability. However, despite a flurry of research attempting to test for it in the ‘80s, it has never been conclusively demonstrated. “Aristotle described the five basic senses as including vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch,” said Joseph Kirschvink, from Caltech.
“However, he did not consider gravity, temperature, pain, balance, and several other internal stimuli that we now know are part of the human nervous system,” said Kirschvink.