@samaraiininja: Did you know robins have a fascinating built-in compass? It's all thanks to a protein called cryptochrome 4 in their eyes. This protein reacts to blue light and Earth's magnetic field, creating a pair of electrons that shift based on the bird's direction. Klaus Schulten first proposed this idea in 1978, but it was rejected by the scientific community. Decades later, his theory was proven when cryptochrome was found in animal eyes. In 2021, research by Jingjing Xu, Henrik Mouritsen, and Peter Hore's teams confirmed the robin's cryptochrome is magnetically sensitive. Mouritsen describes the sensation as "seeing where north is as kind of a shading on whatever else you would be seeing." Interestingly, the robins' compass was disrupted by radio signals and electronics in wooden lab huts, but an aluminum screen instantly fixed it. If this protein is confirmed as the sensor, it would show birds navigate using a quantum mechanism. #Robins #BirdNavigation #QuantumBiology #birds

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Friday 06 November 2026 20:41:51 GMT