Spontaneous magnetic alignment by yearling snapping turtles: rapid association of radio frequency dependent pattern of magnetic input with novel surroundings.
Landler L, Painter MS, Youmans PW, Hopkins WA, Phillips JB. · 2015
View Original AbstractRadio frequency fields disrupted turtle magnetic navigation, suggesting wireless signals may interfere with natural animal compass systems.
Plain English Summary
Researchers exposed young snapping turtles to low-level radio frequency fields to understand how they navigate using Earth's magnetic field. They found that RF exposure disrupted the turtles' magnetic compass, causing them to orient in different directions or become completely disoriented depending on when the RF was introduced. This suggests that common wireless signals could interfere with the natural navigation abilities that many animals rely on for survival.
Why This Matters
This study reveals something profound about how our wireless world may be disrupting nature's most ancient navigation systems. The researchers used radio frequency fields at the Larmor frequency (the specific frequency that interferes with quantum processes in living cells) and found it completely scrambled the turtles' magnetic compass. What makes this particularly concerning is that the turtles formed lasting associations between RF exposure and their environment, meaning the disruption persisted even after the RF was removed. The science demonstrates that the same quantum mechanisms allowing these animals to sense magnetic fields for navigation are vulnerable to the very frequencies our wireless devices emit constantly. While this study focused on turtles, similar magnetic sensing mechanisms exist across the animal kingdom, from birds to bees to mammals. The reality is that we're conducting a massive, uncontrolled experiment on wildlife navigation systems with every cell tower, WiFi router, and wireless device we deploy.
Exposure Information
Specific exposure levels were not quantified in this study.
Study Details
We investigated spontaneous magnetic alignment (SMA) by juvenile snapping turtles using exposure to low-level radio frequency (RF) fields at the Larmor frequency to help characterize the underlying sensory mechanism
Turtles, first introduced to the testing environment without the presence of RF aligned consistently...
The findings show that turtles first exposed to a novel environment form a lasting association between the pattern of magnetic input and their surroundings. However, under natural conditions turtles would never experience a change in the pattern of magnetic input. Therefore, if turtles form a similar association of magnetic cues with the surroundings each time they encounter unfamiliar habitat, as seems likely, the same pattern of magnetic input would be associated with multiple sites/localities. This would be expected from a sensory input that functions as a global reference frame, helping to place multiple locales (i.e., multiple local landmark arrays) into register to form a global map of familiar space.
Show BibTeX
@article{l_2015_spontaneous_magnetic_alignment_by_2338,
author = {Landler L and Painter MS and Youmans PW and Hopkins WA and Phillips JB.},
title = {Spontaneous magnetic alignment by yearling snapping turtles: rapid association of radio frequency dependent pattern of magnetic input with novel surroundings.},
year = {2015},
url = {https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0124728},
}