About This Project

For decades, scientists have gathered evidence of the biological impacts of weak magnetic fields. In particular, raising tadpoles in a chamber shielding Earth's tiny field causes fewer embryos to survive. These results have been a stalemate in the scientific community, with researchers sometimes denying their validity.Deadlocks like these can be overcome through public replications such as The Tadpole Experiment.

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

For decades, scientists have gathered evidence of the biological impacts of weak magnetic fields (MFs). Among others, MFs change human cells' respiration and their production of oxidants; birds use the Earth’s MF to navigate. Companies use MFs to treat tumors and, very vividly, raising tadpoles in a hypomagnetic chamber causes decreased viability.

The effects of MFs on biological systems is a surprise. In a small minority of cases, cells contain chunks of magnetite, so that they respond to MFs like a magnet. In another minority of instances, sharks and rays have organs that act like conduction channels that can sense MFs. For most cases, however, scientists have been unable to explain how the impacts occur.

What is the significance of this project?

The result has been a stalemate in the scientific community, with researchers unfamiliar with weak magnetic field results sometimes denying their validity. Taking a page from the history of science, deadlocks like these can sometimes be overcome through public replications, where the experiment and data are made visible not only to scientists, but to the public as well. A public replication of key experiments with weak magnetic fields, like raising tadpoles in a hypomagnetic chamber, can help scientific consensus catch up to what should be considered the cutting edge.

What are the goals of the project?

To advance the conversation, The QuBiT Lab is performing a public replication of a key experiment: raising tadpole embryos in a hypomagnetic chamber. The chamber is made with mu-metal, a special alloy that, in this case, reduces the magnetic field inside the chamber to about 9 nT. This is much lower than the Earth’s magnetic field, which is about 50 muT.

According to prevailing scientific wisdom, the diminished magnetic field should not produce notable effects. Yet, other researchers who have raised tadpoles in hypomagnetic chambers have found that embryos are non-viable at a significantly higher rate.