[NewCandle] Cryptochromes

[Keith Nagel]

I've been messing with electronic integration circuits to make
B field measurements, and as always when I mess with this stuff
I wish I could just _sense_ the field... Well, maybe I can?

http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=EN_NEWS&ACTION=D&SESSION=&RCN=26320

The key is blue light, perhaps there's something to that old K-Mart
sales sign that draws people in...(grin). If I shine a blue light in
my eyes, can I sense a big magnet? Easy enough to try, but I'll need
an accomplice to doubleblind the experiment. Here's what I have in
mind.

Opaque goggles fitted with red and blue leds. Red leds lit, 50 trials
of either presense or absence of _big_ horseshoe magnet in front
of my face. Then, 50 trials of blue light with/without magnet. 
With red light deactivating the cyptochromes, I should see no
correlation. 

My accomplice is a painter so it'll be interesting to compare
a _very_ well trained eye to mine. Before that though, do human
eyes have these??? 

K.