Biomagnetism and Bio-Electromagnetism: The Foundation of Life

by H. Coetzee, Ph.D.

[Originally published in Future History, Volume 8]

Throughout the past 30 years, scientists have been extensively researching organisms that have the ability to produce the ferromagnetic mineral magnetite. Magnetite is a black mineral form of iron oxide that crystallizes in the cubic  or isometric system, namely all crystals which have their crystallographic axes of equal length at 90 degrees to each other. It is a mixed Iron (II) Iron (III)  oxide, Fe3O4, and is one of the major ores of iron that is strongly magnetic. Some varieties, known as lodestone, are natural magnets; these were used as  compasses in the ancient world.

The discovery of a biogenic material (that is, one formed by a biological  organism) with ferromagnetic properties and found to be magnetite was the first breakthrough toward an understanding as to why some animals have the ability to detect the earth’s magnetic field. Searches for biogenic magnetite in human tissues had not been conclusive until the beginning of the 1990’s when work with high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and electron diffraction on human brain tissue extracts of the cerebral cortex, cerebellum, and meninges (membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord) identified magnetite-maghemite crystals.

Biomagnetism

Biomagnetism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Biomagnetism is the phenomenon of magnetic fields produced by living organisms; it is a subset of bioelectromagnetism. The study of the biological effects of magnetic fields is magnetobiology. (The word biomagnetism has also been used loosely to include magnetobiology, further encompassing almost any combination of the words magnetism and biology.)

The origin of the word biomagnetism is unclear, but seems to have appeared several hundred years ago, linked to the expression “animal magnetism.” The present scientific definition took form in the 1970s, when an increasing number of researchers began to measure the magnetic fields produced by the human body. The first valid measurement was actually made in 1963,[1] but the field began to expand only after a low-noise technique was developed in 1970.[2] Today the community of biomagnetic researchers does not have a formal organization, but international conferences are held every two years, with about 600 attendees. Most conference activity centers around the MEG (magnetoencephalogram), the measurement of the magnetic field of the brain.