somehow the cyclic pattern of living things was linked to this environmental parameter (11). Since then
other studies have shown how complex and pervasive these rhythms are in the earth's geophysical
environment. In particular, Konig had shown in 1959 that the magnitude of the 10 Hz frequency band
in the ELF spectrum followed a precise diurnal variation (12 ) .
In his search for an organism and a biocycle pattern that could be studied in conjunction with
magnetic fields, Brown turned to a seemingly unlikely animal, the mud snail Nassarius, a common
global resident of the intertidal zone (13). He found that when these animals were placed under uniform
illumination in an enclosure with an exit facing magnetic south, they would tum westward early in the
morning, eastward at noon, and then back to the west in the early evening as they came out of the exit.
Also, at new and full moons the snails would veer more to the west, and at the moon's quarters they
turned more to the east. When fully analyzed, the data indicated that the animals possessed both a lunar
day and a solar day "clock". By measurement, the earth's magnetic field at the test site averaged 0.17
gauss. Placing a bar magnet of 1.5 gauss beneath the exit oriented in a north-south direction to augment
the natural field resulted in increasing the average angle of the turn but did not alter the basic
rhythmicity. Turning the entire apparatus so that the exit pointed in a different direction resulted in the
animals turning in different degrees. The same result could be obtained by leaving the apparatus
stationary and rotating the bar magnet beneath the exit. According to Brown, "It seemed as if the snails
possessed two directional antennae for detecting the magnetic field direction, and that these were
turning, one with a solar day rhythm and the other with a lunar day one."
In addition to demonstrating that the biocyclic phenomenon was tied to variations in the earth's
magnetic field, the experiment also indicated the subtlety of the interaction. It became evident that one
could not expect to detect the same kind of dramatic, overt response to changes in the magnetic field as
were associated with changes in the other environmental factors such as oxygen concentration or
temperature. Within the next few years Brown and his associates established a similar sensitivity to
electrostatic fields with responses in the same species of snail to fields of fractional microvolts per
centimeter (14). During the same period of time the all-pervasive nature of the biological cycle
phenomena became known. Living things as diverse as potatoes, mice, fruit flies and humans were
found to demonstrate the same cyclic fluctuations, linked to the same variations in the earth's normal
electromagnetic field. The same rhythms were demonstrated in the oxygen consumption of the potato
and in the count of circulating Iymphocytes in the human blood stream. Clearly, we are dealing with as
basic and all-encompassing a phenomenon as livings things exhibit.
Working at the Max Planck Institute over the past 15 years, Professor Rutger Wever has
extended the research on biological cycles to the human, using a unique experimental facility. To
produce an environment as free of external cues as possible, Wever constructed an underground
experimental station consisting of two rooms. One room was completely isolated from normal
variations such as light, noise, and temperature, but was not shielded from any electromagnetic fields.
The other room was identical except that it was, in addition, completely shielded from both DC and AC
electromagnetic fields. Extensive experimentation has been carried out with several hundred human
subjects under various conditions with monitoring of such variables as: body temperature, sleep-
activity cycles, and urinary excretion of sodium, potassium and calcium. Human subjects placed in
both rooms soon demonstrated a "free running" rhythm. Those in the room not shielded from the
electromagnetic environment had an essentially normal circadian rate, while those in the shielded room
demonstrated a significantly longer cycle time (15). In the nonshielded room some subjects would,
after the passage of 7 to 10 days, show an apparent desynchronization in some of the measured
variables. In this situation one or more of the measured variables would maintain the normal circadian
rate while others would show a gradual shift in cycle time away from this norm. However, these would
ELECTROMAGNETISM & LIFE - 52