The very Cartesian magazine “ Science & Life” publishes an article acknowledging the sensitivity of Man to static magnetic fields !
“Some will say that they have always known it, others will find it hard to believe it… But today, the facts are here : without even being aware of them, we would be able to feel magnetic fields ! While the idea that the influence of these fields on life has long been confined to dowsers, magnetizers and other pseudo-scientists, science has for the first time given credibility in the form of plausible biological mechanisms and undeniable behavioural observations. It thus draws the contours of a magnetic sense, which is still full of mysteries, but which is no longer paranormal.
At first glance, however, everything leads to doubt the existence of a sensory perception of magnetic forces. Invisible, inaudible and impalpable, without flavour or odour, these forces born from the vortex of molten metals that animate the heart of the Earth are revealed only in the presence of compasses or magnets. The lines of the Earth’s field that connect each point on the planet to its north and south magnetic poles may run through each of our cells, but they remain a bizarre thing we believe in, rather than a physical phenomenon we perceive. Besides, if smell has the nose, and sight has the eyes, what would be the organ of reception of the magnetic field ? How can we explain the fact that we have no awareness of this information ? And what would this one do to us ? These are puzzles that allow us to imagine why the magnetic field has become an ideal scientific guarantor for the wildest ideas… It was a long way before the hypothesis of Man’s ability to detect magnetic fields emerged. Even today’s widely accepted facts, like the presence of a magnetic sense in most migratory species, have found it very difficult to establish themselves. “At first, there was a lot of skepticism among biologists and physicists alike”, says Kenneth Lohmann, a biologist at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, USA.
Mentioned in the early 90s, the hypothesis of a magnetic meaning in some migratory birds was first recognised by the scientific community as early as the 60s [...] When the Earth’s magnetic field was disturbed, the birds tended to move in a different direction from their usual preferred direction.
We know today, no one doubts any more, that many animals, to find their way along their long migratory routes, use variations of the magnetic field lines they cross by.
