They’ve proven as much using a variety of experiments. But detailing the actual neurological mechanism has proved elusive.
Now, researchers say they’ve finally located the first sensor of the Earth’s magnetic field in an animal. The mechanism was located inside the brain of a worm, discovered by a team of scientists and engineers at the University of Texas.
Researchers located what they describe as a nano-scale TV antenna located at the end of a neuron called AFD in the brain of a roundworm (Caenorhabditis elegans). The worms use the microscopic antenna to navigate underground.
“It’s been a competitive race to find the first magnetosensory neuron,” researcher Jon Pierce-Shimomura, a neuroscience professor at Texas, said in a press release. “And we think we’ve won with worms, which is a big surprise because no one suspected that worms could sense the Earth’s magnetic field.”
Scientists were able to demonstrate the antenna’s electromagnetic sensitivity in a lab setting, by comparing worms from all over the globe. Roundworms typically move downward from the soil surface in an effort to find food.
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