Venus Flytraps Have Magnetic Fields Like the Human Brain

An anonymous reader shares a report from Motherboard (Editor's note: the article was written last week based on findings published in January): [F]or the first time in history, a group of mavericks out of Switzerland have detected a magnetic signal in a plant. Using a highly sensitive magnetometer, an interdisciplinary team of researchers have measured signals from a Venus flytrap of up to.5 picotesla. To make matters even more mind-blowing, this signal is roughly equivalent to the biomagnetic field strength of the human brain. The full report is here.

The Venus flytrap boasts three trigger hairs that serve as mechanosensors. When a prey insect touches a trigger hair, an Action Potential is generated and travels along both trap lobes. If a second touch-induced Action Potential is fired within 30 seconds, the energy stored in the open trap is released and the capture organ closes. This is the plant-insect equivalent of a repeat offender. Imprisonment ensues. Crucial to making these findings was the fact that this electrical activity doesn't carry into the stalk of traps, which allowed the researchers to isolate the lobe by slicing it from the rest of the plant. Biologically intact, it was then placed on to a sensor. The discovery is as huge for biomagnetism in plants as it is for electro-physiology in general. We now have proof of a pathway for long-distance signal propagation between plant cells. '[I]n the future, magnetometry may be used to study long-distance electrical signaling in a variety of plant species, and to develop noninvasive diagnostics of plant stress and disease,' the report says. Crops could be scanned for temperature shifts, chemical changes, or pests without having to damage the plants themselves.

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