Sixth Sense

Evidence of humanity’s lost "six sense" may have been found, a researcher from the California Institute of Technology has claimed.

20:25 29 June 2016

Joe Kirschvink, a researcher from the California Institute of Technology, claimed to have found evidence that humans still have “lost” ability to detect Earth’s magnetic field.

 

He said: 'It's part of our evolutionary history. Magnetoreception may be the primal sense.'

 

In his study, he used a Faraday cage that blocks out any and all electromagnetic background noise using wire coils. The study also involved the use of an EEG monitor to analyse the brain activity of 24 volunteers when exposed to rotating magnetic field that mimics that of the Earth. The study found that when the magnetic field was rotating clockwise, there was a drop in alpha waves and that the neural response was delayed a few hundred milliseconds, which suggests an active brain response.

 

The ability to sense Earth’s magnetic field is innate in certain creatures such as insects, birds and other mammals, which use this ability for migration or orient to their surrounding environment. It was also found by researchers that this power is present in dogs, foxes and bears, which have field-sensing moleculre cryptochrome in their eyes.

 

Meanwhile, other experts said that this “six sense” harnesses its power from iron minerals and magnetite to act as “compass needles.” Others claim that it relies on protein in the retina called cryptochrome.