The Human Magnetic Field: Is It Real?
You’ve heard the phrase “magnetic personalities” before, but are there actually magnetic people? You’ve probably seen videos circulating on the internet of people claiming to be magnetic. They place objects on their bodies only for them to hold their place rather than fall to the ground as one would expect. Are these “magnetic people” truly magnetic?
The simple answer? No, of course not. While we already know that some animals like eels, caribou, and birds have a magnetic sixth sense which allows them to return to places that are important to them such as mating grounds, humans have yet to fully exhibit this ability. But is there another form of an innate magnetic sense in humans?
Humans Made from Balls of Energy
The entire human body is made up of cells which are made up of atoms which are positively charged. So our bodies are made up of tiny little balls of charges. Each atom has its own electric field and when it gets close enough to another atom, their electric fields can interact and potentially repel each other.
Imagine someone has just slapped you across the face. Rude, right? As their fingers and palm connect with your cheek, the atoms in their hand are being seriously repelled by the atoms in your cheek. That’s why it hurts and their hand doesn’t just pass harmlessly through the atoms in your face. This entire interaction can only happen because of the electric fields of our bodies!
No, this doesn’t make you Magneto. However, humans may have more of a magnetic sense than you think.
A recent study has found that a specific protein in the human eye, when placed in fruit flies, has the ability to detect magnetic fields. This sixth sense for magnetic fields, magnetoreception, is very important to migratory animals, allowing them to find their way back from hundreds of miles away.
The flies equipped with the human protein showed a higher sensitivity to the magnetic fields - either moving towards the field if they were trained using a sugar reward to move toward the magnetic field or shying away as they would naturally if not used to the magnetism.
Scientists stress that while this does demonstrate the protein’s ability to detect magnetism, it doesn’t mean it is used by the human eye for that specific function.
So, unfortunately, no, us mere human mortals don’t possess a true magnetic ability. You can’t actually make magnets stick to you and you certainly can’t make magnets move with your mind. It was found, however, that people potentially do have magnetoreception abilities.
While we keep our fingers crossed for some medical advancement in this field, you can keep track of all the magnetic news and goings on our blog here.