Birds: Magnetic field reception for navigation is a complete mystery

6 Replies to “Birds: Magnetic field reception for navigation is a complete mystery”

1. 1
   bornagain77 says:

   June 28, 2021 at 5:10 am

   As to: “researchers have confirmed that a protein found in bird eyes displays a quantum mechanical phenomenon which makes it sensitive to magnetic fields.”

   I wonder what Einstein would have thought about that? On the one hand Einstein held that magnetism, (particularly the Earth’s magnetic field), proved that “Something deeply hidden had to be behind things.”

   How a Compass Pointed Albert Einstein In The Right Direction – May 6, 2020
   Excerpt: By his own admission, Einstein’s interest in physics was sparked almost accidentally. When he was about five years old and sick in bed, his father Hermann brought him a magnetic compass to play with.
   And play he did: he twisted and shook it, noting that whichever way he turned the compass, the needle always pointed to the magnetic north.
   As he later recalled in his Autobiographical Notes, “I can still remember—or at least believe I can remember—that this experience made a deep and lasting impression upon me. Something deeply hidden had to be behind things.”
   https://www.simplycharly.com/blog/how-a-compass-pointed-albert-einstein-in-the-right-direction/

   Yet, on the other hand, Einstein resisted the ‘spooky action at a distance’ of quantum mechanics:

   In a letter to Max Born in 1947 Einstein said of the statistical approach to quantum mechanics, which he attributed to Born, “I cannot seriously believe in it because the theory cannot be reconciled with the idea that physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky action at a distance” (the actual phrase used by Einstein was German, “spukhafte Fernwirkung”. Spooky, or ghostly, is a reasonable translation, although “spooky” was not in common usage in English in 1947).
   The correspondence has been published in The Born-Einstein letters: correspondence between Albert Einstein and Max and Hedwig Born from 1916–1955, with commentaries by Max Born. Macmillan. 1971. p. 158.
   https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/11839/what-is-the-source-of-einsteins-quote-spooky-action-at-a-distance

   Yet, despite Einstein’s resistance to quantum mechanics’, the ‘spooky action at a distance’ of quantum mechanics has been confirmed over, and over, again and Einstein’s hidden variable theories have been repeatedly disconfirmed. ,,,

   In fact, the evidence for quantum mechanics has been so consistent that the following author, Margaret Reid, even holds that Einstein would “be a convert today”.

   Einstein vs quantum mechanics, and why he’d be a convert today – June 13, 2014
   Excerpt: In a nutshell, experimentalists John Clauser, Alain Aspect, Anton Zeilinger, Paul Kwiat and colleagues have performed the Bell proposal for a test of Einstein’s hidden variable theories. All results so far support quantum mechanics. It seems that when two particles undergo entanglement, whatever happens to one of the particles can instantly affect the other, even if the particles are separated!
   http://phys.org/news/2014-06-e.....today.html

   Whether Einstein would be honest to the evidence, and actually be a ‘convert’, we, or course, have no way of actually knowing, So one still wonders exactly what Einstein would have thought about the fact that “researchers have confirmed that a protein found in bird eyes displays a quantum mechanical phenomenon which makes it sensitive to magnetic fields.”?

   “Something deeply hidden had to be behind things.”
   – 5 year old Einstein’s reaction to a compass –

   Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory – 29 October 2012
   Excerpt: “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,”
   http://www.quantumlah.org/high.....uences.php

   Verse

   Colossians 1:17
   He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

   Supplemental note:

   Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology – Part II – video
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSig2CsjKbg
2. 2
   martin_r says:

   June 28, 2021 at 5:18 am

   i apologize, english is not my first language, but did i get it right?

   do birds have some kind of head-up display in their eyes ?

   i apologize for a silly question …
3. 3
   jerry says:

   June 28, 2021 at 8:21 am

   I have often said that much of human behavior can be explained by gravity. I was joking of course but in another way was serious. I was referring about protein folds and how they affect human behavior and that gravity being one of the four basic forces of physics was affecting our behavior through these folds.

   I said gravity because everyone knows how gravity affects them but almost nothing about how magnetic fields affects their lives. But I knew I was wrong because gravity is such a weak force it would have little effect on protein folds. But what does drive protein folds is the electromagnetic forces which is thousands of times stronger than gravity.

   So my guess is that it’s not implausible to think magnetic forces would be discernible by some proteins and affect behavior. Whether it’s the way this video maintains or another way will become apparent over time.
4. 4
   bornagain77 says:

   June 28, 2021 at 8:28 am

   Martin: “do birds have some kind of head-up display in their eyes ?”

   No, that is not what they are suggesting. They are merely suggesting that quantum coherence in the retina of the European Robin makes the migratory birds sensitive to the earth’s magnetic fields.

   Which is astonishing enough all by itself. According to Quantum Physicist Jim Al-Khalili, finding the phenomenon of Quantum Entanglement to be present in European Robins is “nothing short of miraculous.”

   “We are used to trying to control the delicate quantum world inside our sterile, controlled, laboratory experiments. So the notion that nature has got there first, that somehow these delicate quantum phenomena can be maintained inside the warm, messy, complex environment of a living cell is nothing short of miraculous.”
   – Jim Al-Khalili and the Quantum Robin – video
   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jepgOQEvWT0

   And this is ‘miraculous’ in far more than just a figurative sense. As referenced earlier, in order to give an adequate explanation for quantum coherence we are forced to appeal to a beyond space and time cause.

   Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory – 29 October 2012
   Excerpt: “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,”
   http://www.quantumlah.org/high.....uences.php

   Darwinian materialists simply have no beyond space and time cause to appeal to, whereas Christian Theists do have a beyond space and time cause that they can appeal to.

   Verse

   Colossians 1:17
   He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

   A few related notes:

   Quantum compass for birds – January 2011
   Excerpt: In the new research, physicists at the University of Oxford and the National University of Singapore calculated that quantum entanglement in a bird’s eye could last more than 100 microseconds — longer than the 80 microseconds achieved in physicists’ experiments at temperatures just above absolute zero,,, The new prediction interprets data from earlier experiments that hinted at a quantum basis for magnetic navigation in migrating birds. In 2006, researchers in Frankfurt, Germany, netted 12 European robins migrating from Scandinavia. Researchers locked the robins in a wooden room and applied small magnetic fields tuned to a frequency that would disturb entangled electrons, if the birds indeed relied on entanglement to navigate.
   The magnetic field, at 150 nanoTesla, was about 300 times weaker than Earth’s magnetic field, so it wouldn’t be expected to confuse the birds in the absence of an entanglement-based navigation system. But with the magnetic field on, the birds flew randomly instead of all flying in the same direction.
   http://www.sciencenews.org/vie....._for_birds

   Evolutionarily Unrelated Animals Use Geomagnetic Navigation – January 19, 2015
   Excerpt: baby turtles, with their tiny brains, must have the ability to memorize the natal signatures of odors and magnetic field properties at birth, then recall those memories years later as large adults. (Sea turtles return about every two years to lay eggs.)
   That would be a conundrum enough to explain by unguided processes like natural selection. But then, adding to the difficulty for Darwinism, similar abilities are found in distantly related animals like fish, birds, and mammals. Even if a Darwinian could show a possible line of descent from fish to mammal, the abilities involved would have been lost and regained multiple times, because not all fish, birds, and mammals use magnetic navigation. Given the complexities of the sensory systems involved, this would represent a case of “convergent evolution” on steroids. If the origin of this capability in one type of animal is highly implausible by mutation and selection, how about four times or more?
   http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....92791.html

   Featherweight songbird is a long-distance champ – February 2012
   Excerpt: A tiny songbird weighing just two tablespoons of sugar migrates from the Arctic to Africa and back, a distance of up to 29,000 kilometres (18,000 miles), scientists reported on Wednesday.
   http://www.physorg.com/news/20.....champ.html

   Study shows alpine swift (bird) can stay aloft for 200 days – Oct. 8, 2013
   Excerpt: In analyzing the data captured by the sensors, the researchers found that the test birds stayed in the air at one point for 200 days, covering approximately 10,000 kilometers in the process. This, the researchers report, is the longest flight duration ever recorded by a bird, and is only equaled by some sea-going creatures who need only propel themselves forward—birds of course also have to keep themselves in the air, a process that consumes a lot of energy.
   Some of the most obvious questions that come to mind regarding the birds are: how do they eat and drink? When do they sleep? Prior research has an answer for the first, they eat what is known collectively as aerial plankton—a mix of fungus spores, small insects, seeds and even bacteria that float about in the sky. The water in their food is apparently enough to sustain the birds indefinitely. As for how and when they sleep, scientists are still divided. Data from the sensors in the study indicated slow-downs, or periods of reduced activity where the birds glided more than flapped, but that clearly isn’t enough evidence to prove that the birds were sleeping. Some suggest that the birds, like some other organisms, don’t have to sleep, or only do so during certain periods of their lifecycle, such as during mating season.
   http://phys.org/news/2013-10-a.....-days.html

   Swedish Researchers Find Common Swifts Stay Airborne for 10 Months – Oct. 28, 2016
   Excerpt: A group of Swedish researchers has found that small brown birds know as common swifts can stay airborne for a record 10 months,,,
   The birds typically spend two months a year at breeding sites in Sweden. The rest of the year, they fly to and from their overwintering sites in sub-Saharan Africa where they never touch down.
   “They are extremely well adapted with crescent wings and a long streamlined body shape to minimize the drag,”,,,“They are the Formula One car of the bird world.”,,,
   The aves’ extraordinary ability to stay aloft relies on an ability to eat in the air as well as rest there, but researchers don’t yet know whether the birds sleep on the wing.,,
   MAVs (drones) can only stay airborne for a matter of hours at best, Prof. Hedenström said.
   “Their (a drone’s) performance is ridiculous compared with these birds,” he said.,,,
   despite living such an intensely active life, still live longer than many birds of its size. Swifts normally live for five to six years but some individuals can survive for 20 years, Prof. Hedenström said.
   “We often say those who live fast die young but the swifts seem to have beaten that trade off.”
   http://www.wsj.com/articles/sw.....1477673791

   Verse:

   Job 12:7-10
   “But ask the animals, and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.”
5. 5
   martin_r says:

   June 28, 2021 at 1:04 pm

   Bornagain, you sure?

   From the video (at 4:47)

   and so Henrik and team members believe birds may actually see the Earth’s magnetic field.

   in that video, they also tried to mimic what the bird may actually see using an overlay graphic (looks like a blind spot in bird’s vision)
6. 6
   bornagain77 says:

   June 28, 2021 at 1:45 pm

   Well Martin, no I am not sure. Come to think of it, the entanglement is in the retina, so it is very possible, even very likely, that they are seeing something, but as the video said, ‘we do not know, (what the bird is seeing), because we cannot ask the bird” 🙂