On Sabbatical, Evanston Illinois
Back in the
days when I first got into rock, earth and paleo-magnetism I went to a meeting
where a guy put magnetotaxic bacteria through their tricks. It just had been discovered that a certain
type of bacteria secreted magnetic particles – the mineral magnetite, I think –
inside their cell walls. They used these
little particles to interact with the earth’s magnetic field – to deduce the
direction of “down”. It appears that
their source of nutrition was stuff that was found at the bottom of murky ponds. If you reversed their polarity they would
turn around and swim UP. It was pretty
amusing, watching the poor little devils swim frantically in one direction,
then suddenly whip around and wiggle in the opposite path. I remember I thought it was kind of mean.
Well, it
seems that these little magnetic creatures may have some use in medicine. Specifically, they can be used to guide
cancer-lethal nanoparticles to where they can do some good, by fiddling with an
external magnetic field. Sounds like it
might work.
I wrote
about another use of magnetism in oncology recently:
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