If the slice contained magnetic particles, those particles would then show up as a reading in the magnetometer. In the remote forest lab, far from widespread sources of magnetic pollution including car exhaust and cigarette ashes, and shielded by leaves known to absorb magnetic particles, the scientists placed their slices under a device that measures magnetic forces.Īfter taking a control reading, the researchers placed the brain slices next to very strong magnets to magnetize the samples and then took another reading. In the study, the researchers looked at slices of brain from seven people who had died in the early 1990s at ages 54 to 87. Contamination is always possible, "but would not be the same in multiple individuals," he told Live Science in an email. Joseph Kirschvink, a professor of geobiology at Caltech who was not part of the study, said that the new research is "a very important advance, as it rules out obvious sources of external contamination" from pollution.
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