Five hypotheses to examine the nature of magnetic field transduction in biological systems

This paper postulates five experiments that may be used to characterize the nature of the transduction step in which a magnetic or electric field is c onverted into a biological signal. Each of the five experiments is formulat ed as a refutable hypothesis in such a manner that rejection of the hypothe sis will provide information about the transduction process and an associat ed confidence level for evaluating each experiment. The proposed hypotheses are formulated to provide inferences about the mode of interaction (magnet ic field or induced electric field transduction), spatial distribution of t he detector elements in the biological system, and the timescale of the tra nsductive step. Bioelectromagnetics 20:423-430, 1999. (C) 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.