{"id":644127,"date":"2026-10-12T13:38:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-12T13:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/644127\/"},"modified":"2026-10-12T13:38:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T13:38:13","slug":"scientists-shielded-fruit-flies-from-earths-magnetic-field-some-lived-20-longer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/644127\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Shielded Fruit Flies From Earth\u2019s Magnetic Field. Some Lived 20% Longer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"-3\"<\/a>Credit: Pexels<\/p>\n

Every cell in your body has spent its entire existence inside Earth\u2019s magnetic field. We usually think of that field as a planetary shield, deflecting charged particles from space. But a new experiment suggests its influence may extend much farther inward\u2014to the machinery cells use to make energy.<\/p>\n

Researchers at the University of Nottingham found that almost eliminating Earth\u2019s magnetic field altered mitochondrial activity in fruit flies. In flies with a genetic defect that damages mitochondria, the treatment also extended lifespan by about 20%. But there was a catch: the longer-lived flies became worse at climbing. Healthy flies responded differently, improving their climbing ability without a significant extension of lifespan.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t necessarily show that Earth\u2019s magnetic field controls human ageing. But it does suggest that magnetism may be part of the physical environment cells respond to\u2014and that its effects depend heavily on what is already happening inside those cells.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe live our entire lives within the Earth\u2019s magnetic field,\u201d Lisa Chakrabarti, a professor at Nottingham and an author of the study, said in a statement. \u201cIt passes through our bodies, our cells and every living organism on the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost No Field<\/p>\n

\"-3\"<\/a>Transmission electron microscope image of mammalian lung tissue mitochondria. Credit: Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n

Earth\u2019s magnetic field measures roughly 25 to 60 microteslas at the surface. The researchers placed flies inside a metal shielding chamber that reduced it to about 0.0056 microteslas\u2014about 4,500 to 10,700 times weaker. Control flies lived under the same light, temperature and noise conditions outside the shield.<\/p>\n

The team studied healthy male flies and flies carrying a disabled Pink1 gene. In people, mutations in PINK1 (the corresponding human gene is capitalized) can cause rare inherited forms of early-onset Parkinson\u2019s disease<\/a>. The gene helps cells dispose of damaged mitochondria; without it, dysfunctional mitochondria accumulate.<\/p>\n

When the researchers began shielding the mutant flies at 20 days old, their risk of dying during the experiment fell by about half compared with mutant flies living under normal geomagnetic conditions. Their lifespan increased by approximately 20%. Starting the treatment at 10 days old, however, did not produce a statistically significant survival benefit.<\/p>\n

Yet their movement deteriorated. Pink1 flies already struggle to climb as they age, and magnetic shielding made that impairment worse.<\/p>\n

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And in normal flies, shielding produced essentially the opposite behavioral result: climbing improved at several ages, while survival did not change significantly.<\/p>\n

In other words, the same environmental change appeared to benefit survival in one group and physical performance in another. Neither improvement automatically translated into better overall health.<\/p>\n

A Possible Explanation Inside Mitochondria<\/p>\n

The researchers then looked inside the energy-producing machinery itself; the mitochondria, the famous powerhouses of the cell.<\/p>\n

They found that shielding significantly increased respiration supported by Complex II in healthy flies. Complex II is part of the mitochondrial machinery that helps cells extract usable energy from nutrients.<\/p>\n

In the mutant flies, Complex II activity showed a similar upward trend, but the difference was not statistically significant. The team also detected changes in reactive oxygen species, including free radicals, using a technique involving fluorescent nanodiamonds.<\/p>\n

Those molecules often get portrayed simply as cellular damage. In reality, cells also use them as signals. The researchers propose that removing the magnetic field may act as a mild stressor, prompting mitochondria to compensate. In Pink1 flies, that response might partly offset an existing mitochondrial defect.<\/p>\n

However, that explanation remains a hypothesis.<\/p>\n

Other Experiments Have Found Surprising Effects<\/p>\n

\"-3\"<\/a>Drosophila melanogaster. Credit: Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n

Scientists have seen magnetic fields affect ageing-related biology before, although not always in the same direction. A 2022 study of C. elegans worms<\/a> found that adding a moderate static magnetic field extended median lifespan by 18% and improved movement in older worms. But that experiment used a field of around 10 milliteslas, hundreds of times stronger than Earth\u2019s natural field. It was a very different intervention from the near-total shielding used in the new research.<\/p>\n

Removing most of the field can produce less welcome effects. In another 2022 experiment in mice<\/a>, eight weeks in a hypomagnetic environment impaired cognition and altered reactive oxygen levels in the hippocampus.<\/p>\n

Taken together, these studies suggest that magnetic-field exposure can affect animal physiology, but they offer no simple rule about whether stronger or weaker fields are beneficial.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s also reason for skepticism. A massive 2023 Nature study of more than 100,000 fruit flies<\/a> found no convincing evidence that flies could detect experimentally applied magnetic fields in several behavioral tests, challenging earlier claims of fly magnetoreception.<\/p>\n

The new Nottingham experiment asks a somewhat different question: whether removing the background field changes the flies\u2019 physiology and survival rather than whether they can deliberately sense magnetic fields.<\/p>\n

For now, the answer appears to be yes\u2014at least in male fruit flies. <\/p>\n

Whether the same applies to mammals, much less people, remains unknown. But the results suggest that Earth\u2019s magnetic field may be more than scenery for life. After billions of years beneath Earth\u2019s magnetic field, life may have adapted to this faint planetary force in ways scientists are only beginning to understand.<\/p>\n

The study was published in the journal Aging<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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