Trying to iron out all the ways animals sense the earth’s magnetic field, researchers have managed to overturn a “widely held view” about the functioning of certain photoreceptor molecules:
…states Dr. Reppert, “the finding provides the first genetic evidence that a vertebrate-like (photoreceptor molecule) can function as a magnetoreceptor.”
An interesting feature of the team’s work disproved a widely held view about how these proteins can chemically sense a magnetic field.
In your face!!
“These findings suggest that there is an unknown photochemical mechanism that the (photoreceptor molecules) use instead,” says Dr. Gegear, lead author on the paper, “one that we are hotly pursuing.”
Mission: tag and bag all unknown photochemical mechanisms.
