"Magnetic Cells" Isolated For First Time

sciencehabit writes "For the first time, researchers have isolated magnetic cells in an animal. The cells--found in this case in rainbow trout--may help the fish respond to Earth's magnetic fields, allowing it to find its way home after spending 3 years at sea and traveling up to 300 kilometers away. The advance may help researchers get to the root of magnetic sensing in a variety of creatures, including birds."

Re:Magnetic monopoles!

[ackthpt]

I told you we would find them!

Usually crashing into the walls around the clinic I went for MRI scans.

The clinic had landscaped brush around the building to keep birds for hitting the walls and windows.

Re:What about Cryptochrome?

[ljw1004]

Your second link says "Despite decades of study, the physical basis of the avian magnetic sense remains elusive". It goes on to say that one hypothesis is magnetite, and another hypothesis is the generation of radical pairs inside cryptochrome, but this wasn't confirmed since no atomic-resolution structure of cryptochrome has yet been produced.

The article says that individual cells have been isolated which operate on magnetite. So it looks like it (1) is the first time there's been an actual confirmed result, and (2) it contradicts the cryptochrome hypothesis.

But I know nothing about this field. I'm merely reading the linked articles.

Re:They're called

[Solandri]

It gets worse. The taxonomy of the salmonids was based on morphology in the centuries before DNA testing. When the DNA was actually tested, ichthyologists had a lot of egg on their faces. Not only did they find that the steelhead and rainbow trout were the same species, it turned out the rainbow trout - arguably the archetypical trout - is actually a salmon. It also turned out the Atlantic salmon (the most common species of "farmed salmon") was a trout, not a salmon.

The rainbow trout's genus [wikipedia.org] was quietly changed from Salmo to Oncorhynchus, placing it with the other salmons. Several trout (including the ubiquitous lake trout) turned out to be char, genus Salvelinus.

Re:What's the catch?

[gman003]

Because the cells are far too weak a magnet for that to work. Any magnet strong enough to pull out the magnetic cells will be strong enough to move *any* water-containing cell.

From reading TFA, it seems they did this by placing samples under a microscope, then slowly rotating a strong magnet beneath it. The magnetic cells rotated with the magnet; the non-magnetic cells did not.