Species that can create magnetic fields

Question

I am trying to come up with an explanation for how a creature could create strong magnetic fields with a high level of control. I'm thinking that their 'writing' would be similar to how computers write to hard disks, which is why I'd like them to have a fine degree of control over this ability. I do have a mineral native to their system that is highly reactive to magnetism and is used extensively in their tech as their hands are not quite as dexterous as ours to manipulate things. I'm also not sure just how strong a field they really need with the existence of this mineral as I am perfectly fine with them being only able to nudge a chunk of iron, compared to being able to levitate moderate weights of this material. Still in the early phases of working out how such a mineral would be dispersed through, and what affect it would have on, an environment.

I suppose they will need some type of organ similar to the ones in electric eels to generate a current to power said field. So I guess my main question is: Is there a combination of electrolytes that is more efficient/powerful than the sodium and potassium that eels use? Could a creature be able to generate stronger fields, but also make highly controlled ones?

Answer 1

I think that if you want to have what you are asking for, you don't have to look into different electrolytes but into a completely different mechanism.

With the electrolytes you basically create a separation of charges by pumping ions on just one side of a barrier. When you remove the barrier, ZAP, you have the spark. Of course this mechanism is useful if you want to create a pulse, not a constant current. More or less what happens when you discharge a capacitor.

If you want a constant-ish current, you would need two materials with different redox potentials and have a saline solution between them. Basically a biological version of a battery. This type of organ might then serve to produce a current, and the current would induce a magnetic field.

Answer 2

How about an organism that uses conductive material to build some kind of shell? Like some sort of really giant snail with a big coil of wire where the shell would be. It could ingest magnetic materials which it normally uses like a gastrolith. But when the animal wants to make electric current, it can move its magnetic gastrolith around in such a way that it acts like a giant generator. Control would come from increasing or decreasing the amount of resistance on the way to whatever sort of organ... maybe another coil that acts like an electromagnet, attached to an extremity. If the materials are really magnetic/conductive or your needs are lesser, you could do the same with a smaller organ.

Another idea would be a bank of naturally occuring graphene capacitors.

Answer 3

Could the organism just incorporate ferromagnetic materials into it's body? Like a lot of tiny magnets.

It could control the magnatism by flipping different pieces to either create parallel or opposite magnetic fields (opposite ones would cancel, turning the effect 'off').

Active magnetism would need quite a lot of current. You'd need really great conductors (I think no biological material comes close to copper or silver, but I'm not sure). It'd probably still take excessive amounts of energy.

You know that video of the frog floating in a magnetic field? The amount of power needed for that has a noticable effect on the city power supply. Biology usually doesn't have that kind of energy available.

If you could get a superconductor, then you could do it with almost no energy use. But all known superconductors only work at temperatures far below freezing. Sweating is not enough to cool to below -200C, not to mention insulation...

Answer 4

Could you look at this the other way round? How do homing birds navigate? How do water- or mineral-diviners dowse? Don’t the birds use tiny, highly sensitive organs? Don’t the dowsers use rods not to create, but to amplify some inherent sensitivity?

What’s a “strong” field or a “high” level of control and how much less dexterous are these critters? My guess is the “chunk” to be nudged might start about fist size, but up to what? An anvil? A dining table? What’s your difference between nudging and levitating and what’s a “moderate weight”? Are you basically looking to use this power to move roughly the same sort of weight the creature could heave physically?

I don’t think there’s much control or range in the charges from electric eels or the like but take a few steps sideway.

In Star Wars microscopic midi-chlorian symbiotes inside the cells of all living things form some sort of energy field, perceived as the Force… but note, “some sort of” is about as close as anyone gets to understanding.

Similarly in Philip Pullman's Books of Dust, elementary Rusakov particles are somehow associated with consciousness. Again, “somehow” is all we really get, unless it be the new slant on Genesis’ “… dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return”.

So, two different forms of "field" extending hugely yet under skilled control…

Answer 5

Maybe you can look into what our nature has to offer, for instance with the electrolocation capabilities of certain mammals like the platypus, or shocking capabilities of electric eels. A small non exhaustive list of examples can be found here here.

Answer 6

Would a large group of electric eels suffice? If they synced their discharges, and others reabsorb them, they could create a constant current exchange, thus a magnetic field..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_eel

Answer 7

As mentioned to other people in the coments, you'll need a constant current and the exemples of real life animals are pulses. However,magnetoreception in animals give a lot of insight on how animals incorporate magnetism in their bodies, sometimes not even using iron based particles like magnetite but proteins that are sensible to weak magnetic forces that can even be disturbed by radio frequencies. I imagine an organism that incorporate a lot of magnetite and somehow their evolutionary history made them develop organs made to control magnetic fiels, of course, it wouldn't be able to do what magneto does if it's purely biological, but maybe atract metal pieces close to it and reppeal magnets

Answer 8

What about having the mineral play a part in it? If the material is particularly sensitive to magnetic fields, it stands to reason that it might be possible for it to be used as a tool to either amplify magnetic fields, or to generate them outright.

Considering the material, it might make sense for them to use a bit of the mineral (or all of it) as part of the writing implement, as opposed to it being a biological ability.

Doing it that way would also let them read the "text" more easily, since they could just run the stylus over it, and feel where it magnetises to the writing-surface.

If we go with biology, maybe they incorporate some of the material internally? Either as a permanent magnet, or a form of biological electromagnet. The former would be easier to work with, but if you went with the latter, maybe it takes the form of organs (magnetophores?) within their skin/equivalent, similar to squid chromatophores, or human sensors. Being able to turn some of them on and off/change their polarity would give them some fine-grained control, and they might be able to strengthen the effective magnetic field by just changing the arrangement and polarity of active magnetophores.

There are some magnets in real life that operate by a similar principle, with the magnet poles arranged in such a way that the resulting pull is stronger than their more conventional counterparts.

Answer 9

To answer your underlying question first: Strong electric fields (as made by electric eels) are not relevant to the generation of high magnetic fields. The latter require large currents.

Generating large magnetic fields is not easy (I know because I design large superconducting magnets).

First it takes an awful lot of current to generate a big magnetic field (if you are envisioning an organic electromagnet). Approximately 150,000 A flowing in a loop of 200 mm diameter is only sufficient to generate 1 Tesla (not a particularly large magnetic field).

Secondly, magnetic field drops very rapidly as you move away from the source of generation. Only 1 m from the 200 mm coil, your field will have fallen by three orders of magnitude (and by 2 m away it will be weaker than the earth's background field).

If you use permanent magnets instead then things are even worse. The strongest permanent magnets in teh world onlygenerate around 0.6 T at their surface, with similar drop-off rate as in an electromagnet.

But if you still want to make a magnetic creature then the best bet is probably to have one that synthesize organic superconductors (these do exist), that work at room temperature (these dont exist at present), that can carry extroardinarily high current densities (many 1000s of amps per mm^2 cross section - and dont exist at present).

You will also need a way to get current into your 'coil'. An organic current generator would seem to be a far more unlikely proposition than an organic voltage generator, and the latter won't work. But there is an alternative way of putting current into a coil called a magnetic flux-pump (real science that does exist) that might just work.