I'm not sure why, but the few times in high-school that I took acid, I could see lines in the night sky going north to south. It was deterministic, like clock work.

Does anybody have an ideas why? I mean, I wasn't really hallucinating, I didn't take too much. I could always truely find north or south. I couldn't tell what was north or south, but I could draw the line, always.

Am I crazy? I mean, I'm not saying I'm a bird, but...

grep "power line"

...am I really the only one who thought about whether this might contribute to why power lines are so attractive for birds to perch on?

I wonder if they would perceive unnatural magnetic fields, particularly small, strong fields as something strange enough to avoid?

If so, I wonder if one could discourage birds from hitting windows by arranging for a strong magnetic field outside the window?

There are ways to discourage birds from flying into windows, but they often make the window less useful to humans.

This raises some interesting questions for me.

First since I've been doing some Software radio stuff of late, I'm wondering if there is a way to build a chemical detector for magnetic fields that would allow one to pick up signals without a giant magnetic loop antenna. The paper (linked in another comment) suggests that the frequency response is low (1uS to 100uS) so it would not be a high bandwidth link :-).

The other is what happens when the poles swap?[1] Do the birds commit mass suicide as they fly north for the winter and south for the summer?

[1] https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/192522-earths-magnetic-f...

Is there practical expirementsl evidence demonstrating birds can sense magnetic fields? That is, can you train a bird to select between two boxes, one of which contains a strong magnet?

Just wondering. I'd read about theories regarding iron in the beaks and whatnot. Sounds cruel, but why not (a) train the bird to select the magnet, then (b) remove beak and check if it can still do the trick, or (c) remove eyes and see if it can still do the trick.

I'm not entirely sure, though, that (a) has been accomplished. Can't find anything on it.

I wonder if the Earths magnetic field flipping every half a Million years affects birds untowardly? Or have they evolved to deal with it?

If you liked this story, I recommend you "Life on the Edge: The Coming of Age of Quantum Biology".

https://www.amazon.com/Life-Edge-Coming-Quantum-Biology/dp/0...

This is really hard to understand in terms of how the eye works. Conventional sight works by detecting photons hitting the retina. But "seeing" a magnetic field seems like it would only work when the eye is literally inside of the field. Magnetic fields don't project or reflect off of things, they are where they are. The eye would have to be directly affected by the field to see it.

And then they wouldnt be able to see parts of the field they are not currently in. Magnetic fields don't radiate anything, they ARE the radiation. It's like trying to see a laser that is not pointed at your eye. It's there, but it cant be detected because no photons from it are hitting your eye.

Could someone please explain the physics in respect of how blue light and magnetic fields measurably interact with this protein?

title was not click bait. they can actually see it. nice. can't wait for the bodymod crowd to catch up on that one

> Whoa, evolution. Just... whoa.

At some point this really starts to sound ridiculous.

What is it like to see a magneric field?

Because it's in their eyes, it would have a visual interpretation. And some evolutionary advantage to that visual advantage, else the cells could be anywhere (unless there's a biochemical similarity to cones?)

However, a field isn't like photons hitting the retina. It would probably be a new colour, which we can't imagine, but I'm asking where that colour would appear, to indicate the field.

Perhaps a faint fog, varying in strength with direction - like the sky at dusk and dawn.

If you have 3D polarized glasses from the cinema you can go outside on a sunny day see this alignment in the sky. It's really cool, highly recommended

Slightly off topic, but I am so thankful for firefox's reader. The amount of annoying ads blinking/flashing is enough to drive me up a wall

Can anyone explain in layperson terms how this is different from regular old polarization?

I've heard people can too if they look at the sky under the right conditions.

So couple this with evolution and you have migration, no?

If birds can figure out how to have blockchain based browsers embedded in their eyes to help with navigation, why can't we just copy that tech for our own uses?

Can we do an Initial Cryptochrome Offering?

I would love to add this ability.

Flagging for a title change, perhaps:

"Birds can see Earth's magnetic fields due to protein in their eyes"

or the original, more clickbait-y title:

"Birds Can See Earth's Magnetic Fields, And We Finally Know How That's Possible"

Birds are so cool!

Cryptochromes? Will there be an ICO?

Crypto birds? I'm in

Cryptoc.. what? Crypto?! Sir when ICO?

Is it bad that I first thought of the electric scooter company Bird?

If the cryptocrome mechanism is real, that's pretty spectacular. I thought that the idea of magnetoreception was mostly abandoned in favor of visual navigation, but I was wrong.

Cryptochromes? That sounds like Google launched a cryptocurrency. These birds are mining Cryptocurrency using Magnetic fields. LOL!