First of all, don't worry, this post isn't about M. Night Shyamalan.
A new study from the University of Massachusetts Medical School noted that "monarch butterflies can sense the Earth's magnetic field and can, consequently, use it to navigate in the absence of light."
Why should you care? Because another The Atlantic Wire noted that what lets said butterflies see Magneto coming is "the cryptochrome gene." It's in butterflies. It's in humans. By extrapolation, this means is that humans too are possibly sensitive to the Earth's magnetic field. "One of the monarch’s two cryptochrome genes is similar in its DNA sequence to the human cryptochrome gene. That prompted the idea of seeing whether the human gene, too, could restore magnetic sensing," according to The New York Times (whew, hang with us y'all!).
If so, this could help explain why some people have a "natural sense of direction," but given the increase in electromagnetic signals (cell phones, wi-fi, microwaves, et cetera) we could be cutting ourselves off from this natural source of information, like a Jedi walking into a room full of ysalamiri.
None of that says that we should go all Amish and ditch our gadges — Komplicated loves technology — but it's interesting to consider.
[Source: The Huffington Post]