It was a puzzle about birds.
Migratory birds are known to rely on Earth’s magnetic field to help them navigate the globe. And it was suspected that a protein called cryptochrome, which is sensitive to blue light, was making it possible for birds to do this.
Yet many of these animals are also known to migrate at night when there isn’t much light available. So it wasn’t clear how cryptochrome would function under these conditions in birds.
A new study led by UT Southwestern Medical Center in collaboration with SMU (Southern Methodist University), though, may have figured out the answer to that puzzle.
Researchers found that cryptochromes from migratory birds have evolved a mechanism that enhances their ability to respond to light, which can enable them to sense and respond to magnetic fields.
“We were able to show that the protein cryptochrome is extremely efficient at collecting and responding to low levels of light,” said SMU chemist Brian D. Zoltowski, who was one of the lead authors of a new study on the findings. (1)
There you go. They still use light.
But they can see light where we cannot.
There is nothing which is not what it is.
There is no one who does not what he does.
You are you. Birds are birds.
You cannot change your nature.
It is just that your nature is… flexible.
We are dancing in the cosmos. And no matter what we think we can do. We will always dance. Because we can. Because we are meant to dance. We think we do things. We trick our selfs into believing we can make things happen. How wrong are we. The music never stopped playing. And the more we do something, the more we stop listening…
In a world full of music, the only thing we can do is not dance.
And fall…
