A recent study has shown that canines are magnetically sensitive. Now, before you go sticking refrigerator magnets to your dog, it isn’t that simple (or cool). In an abstract from Frontiers in Zoology, a conclusion was made that “magnetic sensitivity was proved in dogs.”

Over a two-year span, the defecation and urinary patterns of 70 dogs from 37 breeds was studied. The observers noted that when the magnetic field (MF) was stable, the “body axis” of the dogs during waste elimination was often parallel with the magnified North-south axis. When unstable, this behavior was not present.

“Magnetic alignment is a suitable paradigm to scan for the occurrence of magnetosensitivity…to the understanding of the mechanism of magnetoreception and identify further functions of magnetosensation apart from navigation.” A predictable pattern of the dogs’ behavior was proven during MF fluctuations. The study was the first time distinguishable behavior changes were noted in a mammal during the earth’s MF fluctuations.

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Most of us played with Silly Putty as kids, but this magnetic putty blows the boring, comics-copying goo out of the water. Under regular circumstances it’s squishy and pliable and just like any other putty, really, but once you introduce a magnetic field to it, it basically comes to life. It smooshes itself around objects until they’ve been totally consumed (or at least covered up).

The video footage of this happening looks something like a monster movie. The reactions have been sped up to make them more dramatic, since in real life the swallowing of objects isn’t nearly as quick and terrifying. But if you’d like to get your own Super Magnetic Thinking Putty to try this at home, you can pick some up for about $15 here.

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The world is full of music – but it turns out that the planet makes its own music as well. A “dawn chorus” (sometimes simply called a “chorus”) is a group of natural sounds caused by electromagnetic waves which are emitted from the Earth’s magnetosphere. The waves are audible to the human ear without sophisticated equipment; just a simple radio receiver will pick up the hauntingly beautiful natural sounds.

The phenomenon has been well-known and documented for many years; dawn choruses have even been sampled in songs as some of the most beautiful sounds of the natural world. The name “dawn chorus” arose from the fact that these sounds are more easily heard in the early morning hours. Solar winds coming into contact with the magnetosphere seem to be the cause of the naturally occurring music.

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Magnetic fields surround us invisibly, though we don’t often think of them being there. Filmmakers Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt (as Semiconductor) wondered what magnetic fields might look like, and they set out to animate their spirited dance. Their short film “Magnetic Movie” was filmed at the NASA Space Sciences Laboratory at UC Berkeley. VLF (very low frequency) recordings are paired with audio of space scientists discussing their findings about planetary and solar magnetic fields.

Magnetic Movie from Semiconductor on Vimeo.

But the visual portion of the film is what makes it so remarkable. The whistles, pops and various noises captured by the VLF recordings are animated with a sense of humor. The pictures bring to life perfectly the fields described by the scientists, and the shapes twist and dance in sync with the VLF recordings. Altogether, it’s a surreal 4.5 minutes watching something that the human eye wouldn’t normally be able to detect.

The magnetic fields look alternately like caged animals, wild elemental spirits and ever-changing children’s scribblings. But somehow, they seem to capture exactly how we would picture them…if we’d ever thought to imagine how dancing magnetic fields would look. The award-winning film was purchased in 2008 for the permanent collection at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington.

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