Does anyone remember making electro magnets in school where you wrap wire around a nail and connect the wire to a battery and the nail suddenly become magnetic?

Well, I was wondering, what would happen if you wrapped the wire around your finger or something, would your finger become magnetic what with all the iron in our blood.

I doubt it, so you can put the Magneto lycra suit away.

Even with an empty coil there would be some magnetism but it's very much stronger with an iron core.

The amount of iron in the blood is less than 1%, and it's in the wrong form to be magnetic.

Originally posted by thestruggle
Does anyone remember making electro magnets in school where you wrap wire around a nail and connect the wire to a battery and the nail suddenly become magnetic?

Well, I was wondering, what would happen if you wrapped the wire around your finger or something, would your finger become magnetic what with all the iron in our blood.

no.

well, all the water molecules in your body will align themselves to the field if it is sufficiently strong.

aka Nuclear Magnetic Resonance.

Simply by making a coil and running a current through it, you are creating a magnet. A soft iron core helps to concentrate the lines of flux in a more useful configuration.

Theoretically the iron in the haemoglobin should, when passing through a magnetic field, have a small current induced through it.

I found this:
The strength of this effect will be influenced by such factors as the North South alignment of the magnet relative to the blood's flow, the orientation of the person in the earth's magnetic field. and any other electric appliances which might be operating nearby (remember Galvani's assistant). But how might these induced electric or magnetic fields help or hinder the body as it struggles to maintain its morphology by cell division?

The structure of haemoglobin itself gives us a clue. The iron atom at its centre plays an important role in carrying oxygen round the bloodstream from the lungs to the brain and then the muscles. This Fe atom (called the haem) with its unpaired electrons, can pick up,and let go oxygen atoms very easily. But it is protected by globulin, which are effectively four pairs of polarised polymer strands , encompassing the haem in such a way that their negative ends and positive ends face each other like four pairs of horseshoes.

This protective arrangement ensures that under normal conditions the haem would not itself become magnetised, or if already magnetised it would not change its magnetic condition. Remember I said that all eukaryotic cells have a nucleus containing DNA? Well, human haemoglobin is the exception: it has no nucleus, and no DNA.

When one thinks about it, that makes sense: a nearby iron atom whose net magnetic moment is being changed continually as it collects and drops oxygen would be confusing to any DNA functioning as an aerial receiver: the haemoglobin would "jam" the DNA's reception so to speak.

When they do become magnetised the haemoglobin cells tend to stack like coins (they are flat discs) as their magnetic fields attract each other, positive to negative.

Consider now what might happen if a stray artificial field happens to generate a net magnetic moment in an otherwise stable haemoglobin molecule. It would have a disturbing effect on any other nucleated cells nearby, impairing their reception of incoming signals for DNA synthesis, protein synthesis or for any other reason, such as instructing for morphogenetic integrity.

One of the most important types of blood cell is the T-lymphocyte. These cells confirm which are the cells belonging to the body and which are foreigners. They mark the latter by attaching flags to them for subsequent destruction by the macrophages (which literally gobble them up) or for other kinds of immune system cells to deal with.

Could it be that magnetised haemoglobin inhibits the action of T-lymphocytes, preventing them from fulfilling their cytotoxic (cell-killing) role?

Terrible memories of my MRI exam just came flooding back!!...you have to use a 'coil' to encase the anatomical area to be imaged.. to provide a high signal to noise ratio... nope it's gone again..phew!

It's a sad fact that someone had to invent the term Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) for the medical applications of Nuclear Magnetic resonance (NMR) because people were too scared of the word nuclear. Presumably magnets aren't scary at all.

Yeah? i suppose it could be to distinguish between other type of nuclear medicine medical imaging, like radionuclide (RNI) imaging, the use of radioactive isotopes and MRI (magnetic blah blah blah) which doesn't use ionising radiation at all.. Just a huge banging magnet that everyone thinks is a CT scanner.. which does use amazing amounts of ionising radiation.. it's strange to see the relief when you tell patients it's not the 'tunnel' scanner but the 'polo mint' one!

Originally posted by Phanerothyme
well, all the water molecules in your body will align themselves to the field if it is sufficiently strong.

aka Nuclear Magnetic Resonance.



In NMR its the Nucleii of the hydrogen atoms (present in water) that are aligned to the field. If an NMR machine worked by aligning water molecules it would simply be an giant microwave oven :shocked: scary...

Originally posted by Edd
In NMR its the Nucleii of the hydrogen atoms (present in water) that are aligned to the field. If an NMR machine worked by aligning water molecules it would simply be an giant microwave oven :shocked: scary...

Would it vibrate them like high frequency radio waves do in a microwave?

So CT or CAT scan - is that not simply Computer (Aided) Tomography - i.e. slicing people up with computers? Rather than a specific scanning technology (Positron emmission, NMR?