How Good is Your Inner Compass?

People can sense Earth’s magnetic field, brain waves suggest

A new analysis of people’s brain waves when surrounded by different magnetic fields suggests that people have a “sixth sense” for magnetism.

Birds, fish and some other creatures can sense Earth’s magnetic field and use it for navigation (SN: 6/14/14, p. 10). Scientists have long wondered whether humans, too, boast this kind of magnetoreception. Now, by exposing people to an Earth-strength magnetic field pointed in different directions in the lab, researchers from the United States and Japan have discovered distinct brain wave patterns that occur in response to rotating the field in a certain way.

These findings, reported in a study published online March 18 in eNeuro, offer evidence that people do subconsciously respond to Earth’s magnetic field — although it’s not yet clear exactly why or how our brains use this information.
. . .
During the experiment, 26 participants each sat with their eyes closed in a dark, quiet chamber lined with electrical coils. These coils manipulated the magnetic field inside the chamber such that it remained the same strength as Earth’s natural field but could be pointed in any direction. Participants wore an EEG cap that recorded the electrical activity of their brains while the surrounding magnetic field rotated in various directions.

This setup simulated the effect of someone turning in different directions in Earth’s natural, unchanging field without requiring a participant to actually move. (Complete stillness prevented motor-control thoughts from tainting brain waves due to the magnetic field.) The researchers compared these EEG readouts with those from control trials where the magnetic field inside the chamber didn’t move.
. . .
Sure enough, changes in the magnetic field triggered changes in people’s alpha waves. Specifically, when the magnetic field pointed toward the floor in front of a participant facing north — the direction that Earth’s magnetic field points in the Northern Hemisphere — swiveling the field counterclockwise from northeast to northwest triggered an average 25 percent dip in the amplitude of alpha waves. That change was about three times as strong as natural alpha wave fluctuations seen in control trials.

Curiously, people’s brains showed no responses to a rotating magnetic field pointed toward the ceiling — the direction of Earth’s field in the Southern Hemisphere. Four participants were retested weeks or months later and showed the same responses.

“It’s kind of intriguing to think that we have a sense of which we’re not consciously aware,” says Peter Hore, a chemist at the University of Oxford who has studied birds’ internal compasses. But “extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof, and in this case, that includes being able to reproduce it in a different lab.”

Fair enough. There's a lot of unreproducible science being done. But wouldn't it be cool if through training, one could learn to use their internal compass for orienting?

Stick to Astrophysics, Neil

Biology is obviously above your pay grade: ‘Do You Even Science, Bro?’ Neil DeGrasse Tyson Tries To Crap On Batman, Beclowns HIMSELF Instead

If Batman wants so badly to be a bat, he might be more intriguing if (like Marvel’s Daredevil) he were also blind, like a Bat

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) March 25, 2016

But, bats really aren't blind, that's just an old wive's tale:

See those eyes? They're there because they function. In many species of bats, they work quite well.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson wears his Ph.D. like a wizards robe, and thinks he's infallible, but like all scientists, he has a narrow range of knowledge, and outside that he's got feet of clay and a mind full of mush, just like everyone else.

In Other World News

Edgar Rice Burroughs wasn't as far out as we used to think, with his rivers and lakes on Mars: NASA finds evidence of a vast ancient ocean on Mars

A massive ancient ocean once covered nearly half of the northern hemisphere of Mars making the planet a more promising place for alien life to have gained a foothold, NASA scientists say.

The huge body of water spread over a fifth of the planet’s surface, as great a portion as the Atlantic covers the Earth, and was a mile deep in places. In total, the ocean held 20 million cubic kilometres of water, or more than is found in the Arctic Ocean, the researchers found.

Still a very small ocean by terrestrial standards; our oceans cover 4/5ths of a larger planet, and average many thousands of meters deeper. Assuming that Earth and Mars derived from the same "star dust", they should have had similar water content to start with; why wouldn't Mars have had more? Were there much faster loss rates to begin with?

Unveiled by NASA on Thursday, the compelling evidence for the primitive ocean adds to an emerging picture of Mars as a warm and wet world in its youth, which trickled with streams, winding river deltas, and long-standing lakes, soon after it formed 4.5bn years ago.

The view of the planet’s ancient history radically re-writes what many scientists believed only a decade ago. Back then, flowing water was widely considered to have been a more erratic presence on Mars, gushing forth only rarely, and never forming long-standing seas and oceans.

But the science was settled. Until it was unsettled.

“Ultimately we can conclude this idea of an ocean covering 20% of the planet which opens the idea of habitability and the evolution of life on the planet,” said Geronimo Villanueva, the first author on the study.

The huge body of water lasted for millions of years. But over time, the Martian atmosphere thinned. The drop in pressure meant more ocean water wafted into space. The planet lost much of its insulation too. No longer warm enough to keep the water liquid, the ocean receded and eventually froze. Today, only 13% of the ocean remains, locked up the Martian polar caps.

We know that Earth and Mars have "swapped spit" via meteorites blasted from one to another; it's not much of a stretch to imagine that primitive microorganisms  living in the rocks could have been transferred from one to another, opening the possibility that we are all descended from martians.

Mystery 'noise' could be an Earth-like world: Strange signals suggest habitable planet exists 22 light years away

Astronomers believe mysterious signals - previously dismissed as stellar bursts - are coming from an Earth-like planet.

The Gliese 581d planet has conditions that could support life, and is likely to be a rocky world, twice the size of Earth.

Signals from the planet were initially discovered in 2010, but last year dismissed as noise from distant stars.Now, a further study claims that the 2014 research was based on 'inadequate analyses of the data' and that Gliese 581d does exist.

 A heavy world would hold more atmosphere, and more water changing the conditions for life significantly.  Lots of aquatic life. Could the whole surface be submerged in water? Smaller wings could life more weight, so maybe more fliers?

The new British research, however, argues the method used by the Pennsylvania team was only suitable for large planets, and that it could miss small ones like GJ 581d.

The study, by Queen Mary University, London and the University of Hertfordshire, claims to use a more accurate model on the existing data.

'The existence (or not) of GJ 581d is significant because it was the first Earth-like planet discovered in the 'Goldilocks'-zone around another star and it is a benchmark case for the Doppler technique,' said lead author, Dr Guillem Anglada-Escudé.

An exciting time to be an extra-terrestrial biologist. Just enough information to be tantalizing, and not enough to rule out much.

Wombat-socho celebrates Miss Palin's impending nuptials with "Rule 5 Sunday: Congratulations, Miss Palin!"

Pundit Declares Republican Victory in June Jobs Report

The recent jobs report for the country was mildly uplifting, causing the media and democratic spokesmen, but I repeat, to claim victory for the president job plans:

A surprisingly robust job market is energizing the 5-year-old U.S. recovery and driving the economy closer to full health.

Employers added 288,000 jobs in June and helped cut the unemployment rate to 6.1 percent, the lowest since 2008. It was the fifth straight gain above 200,000 — the best such stretch since the late 1990s tech boom.

The stock market signaled its approval. The Dow Jones industrial average surged 92 points to top 17,000 for the first time.

However, as pointed out by Charles Krauthammer, the uplift occurred after the House Republicans forced an end to extended unemployment benefits, which Democrats warned would cause mass starvation in the streets:



Shockingly it appears that once they cut off from extended unemployment benefits some substantial number of people found the motivation to go out and find jobs.

I like to look at human behavior regarding jobs in terms of what biologists like to call "Optimal Foraging Theory:"

Optimal foraging theory is an idea in ecology based on the study of foraging behavior and states that organisms forage in such a way as to maximize their net energy intake per unit time. In other words, they behave in such a way as to find, capture and consume food containing the most calories while expending the least amount of time possible in doing so. The understanding of many ecological concepts such as adaptation, energy flow and competition hinges on the ability to comprehend what food items animals select, and why.

Substitute money and benefits for food and calories, and you have a very accurate description of how human economies function.