ArticleBiophysical journal2021
Angular Precision of Radical Pair Compass Magnetoreceptors.
Article in Biophysical journal, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- A hybrid compass mechanism combining radical pairs and magnetite crystals.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Magnetosensitivity of Model Flavin-Tryptophan Radical Pairs in a Dynamic Protein Environment.The journal of physical chemistry. B · 2025Article
- Magneto-oncology: a radical pair primer.Frontiers in oncology · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The light-dependent magnetic compass sense of night-migratory songbirds is thought to rely on magnetically sensitive chemical reactions of radical pairs in cryptochrome proteins located in the birds' eyes. Recently, an information theory approach was developed that provides a strict lower bound on the precision with which a bird could estimate its head direction using only geomagnetic cues and a cryptochrome-based radical pair sensor. By means of this lower bound, we show here how the performance of the compass sense could be optimized by adjusting the orientation of cryptochrome molecules within photoreceptor cells, the distribution of cells around the retina, and the effects of the geomagnetic field on the photochemistry of the radical pair.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.