What is the latest research on humans and magnetoreception?

[Dotini]

This subject has been broached here before but never accepted. Is now the time?

Center of attraction
Researchers are testing humans for a subconscious magnetic sense by putting them in a dark metal box and applying magnetic fields.

C. Bickel/Science

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016...he-has-discovered-magnetic-sixth-sense-humans

 

[truth investigator]

Wishing the subject will be accepted. It's a fact, we receive, but scientists are unable to measure how, because they don't change their scales.

 

[jim mcnamara]

Please cite a reference like a paper or a review of a paper from a scientific journal. Simply saying 'x is true' does not have any weight here on PF.
Thanks.

dotini's post is about ongoing research by J Kirshivink, and does not indicate that human magnetoreception is a well documented fact. Kirshivink is trying to establish a hypothesis using a defined methodology. He would not go to all that trouble and expense if magnetoreception were already well documented.

 

[jedishrfu]

Since this is active research into the speculation that humans can detect magnetic fields, we must be careful to provide peer-reviewed references for what we post here otherwise we fall into the trap of personal theories and speculative science that we don't allow on PF.

Let the wild rumpus start again... (from Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak)

 

[Dotini]

Magnetic sensing through the abdomen of the honey bee,
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep23657

Dogs are sensitive to small variations of the Earth's magnetic field
http://download.springer.com/static/pdf/318/art%253A10.1186%252F1742-9994-10-80.pdf?originUrl=http%3A%2F%2Ffrontiersinzoology.biomedcentral.com%2Farticle%2F10.1186%2F1742-9994-10-80&token2=exp=1467245017~acl=%2Fstatic%2Fpdf%2F318%2Fart%25253A10.1186%25252F1742-9994-10-80.pdf*~hmac=ce73be78837ba4d38113cb2958582fe0a5d5f54dc41a2a77883b2172a8cb4967

Researchers from various disciplines are homing in on the mechanics of magnetoreception, an enigmatic sense that some animals use to navigate the globe.
http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/36722/title/A-Sense-of-Mystery/

ATTRACTIVE BUG: The bacterium Magnetobacterium bavaricumbiomineralizes large amounts of tooth-shaped magnetite crystals (each 100 nm long). Arranged in chains, the magnetite crystals all have consistent magnetic polarity, allowing the cell to swim along magnetic field lines.COURTESY OF MARIANNE HANZLIK

MAP LINES: The Earth’s geomagnetic field has two poles—north and south—aligned approximately with the planet’s axis of rotation, much as if a bar magnet was embedded at a slight angle through the center of the Earth. The intensity of the field emanating from the Earth’s surface is strongest at the magnetic poles and weakest at the magnetic equator. The angle at which the field lines intersect the surface, known as the inclination, also varies continuously, from 0° at the magnetic equator to +/−?90° at the poles. Magnetism-sensing animals use these variations in the intensity and inclination of the Earth’s magnetic field for orientation and navigation.© CATHERINE DELPHIA

The Biology of Magnetoreception
View full size http://www.the-scientist.com/images/August2013/bird-infograph.jpg | http://www.the-scientist.com/images/August2013/bird-infograph.pdf© CATHERINE DELPHIA

Compass Eyes
View full size http://www.the-scientist.com/images/August2013/compass-bird-full.jpg | http://www.the-scientist.com/images/August2013/compass-bird-full.pdf© CATHERINE DELPHIA