There is a laboratory that has been doing biomagnetic research since the 1930's. It's the Albert Roy Davis Research Laboratory. Davis was the first scientist in the world to discover that there are TWO separate and distinct energies of magnetism.

Here is a simple experiment that anyone can do to see the effects of the north and south poles. Get an alnico "cow magnet" for this. Place one end of the magnet against a full glass of water (about half way between the top and bottom of the glass) for 10-20 minutes. Fill another glass of water and use the OTHER end of the magnet to magnetize that glass of water. Keep the glasses a couple of feet apart during the magnetizing phase. Place a rose (or another flower) in each glass and record the differences over the next few days. I've done the experiment with two roses, and the south pole water stimulated the flower to open up and it looked great for around a week. The north pole water made the other rose wilt in a day or two. According to Davis and Rawls, some plants do prefer the north pole, but most prefer the south pole water.

Water only stays magnetized for around 2-3 days after being taken off of the magnet, so you may want to magnetize the water again after a few days or use fresh water and magnetize it daily. Sorry, I should have mentioned this before. I'm glad someone is actually going to TRY the experiment before deciding that it can't be true.

Here is another experiment that can be done by those who have the means to do it. This comes directly from "The Magnetic Effect", one of the books by Davis and Rawls. "If we take a sample of animal or human blood and spin off the fluids, the plasma, and leave only the red blood cells, then place these red blood cells on a slide and insert it into a good microscope, when we bring a magnet under the slide the red blood cells all spin around and point in one direction. This is the polarization, alignment, of the iron and ions in the red blood cells." If you turn the magnet around so the other pole is facing the slide, the cells will spin 180 degrees.

Do a search on "government studies on magnetized water" on www.google.com or another search engine. There are plenty of studies that show the effectiveness of magnet therapy. Try doing a google search on "University studies on magnet therapy" and you'll find results from many experiments that clearly show magnet therapy is a legitimate therapy. Keep in mind that to have consistent results, you have to use the north pole side of the magnet with a high enough gauss (usually 1000-4500 gauss), and use it for the correct length of time. A lot of experiments neglect to mention one or more of these details, particularly the experiments that show little or no effect.

The research of Davis and Rawls goes way beyond these simple experiments. In one series of experiments, they exposed male mice to either a south pole or north pole magnetic field (usually around 2500 gauss) for a period of several hours, and a control group that had no exposure to either magnetic field. Next, they put these males with female mice and they mated. Their offspring developed much differently than they normally would. The north pole mice were considerably smaller than normal, they lived about 50% longer than what would be the average for the species and they were more intelligent than the controls. The south pole mice were a lot larger than normal, they too lived longer than the average for the species and they were less intelligent than the controls. These experiments were repeated again and again on mice, and many other species with the same results. These findings and others were published in 'Magnetism and Its' Effects on the Living System'.

I can't vouch for the idea of magnet therapy but it sounds like a good experiment for kids to do.

BTW, have removed that link due to its commercial nature.

I can vouch for the fact that "Scientist" isn't.

What you have here is a full blown fraud.

Where's Uncle Al with his "idiot" animated .gif when you need him?

cool, im just a kid so ill try it. dont ask my age. i just registered cause i love science. did anybody read "the science of discworld"?

Dan, make sure you post your results here when you're done!

In "Magnetism and Its Effects on the Living System", Davis and Rawls explain why the current method used to show the lines of force of a magnet is wrong. "The use of a flat piece of paper with iron filings placed on its top and the bringing up and under that paper a magnet to show the magnet's lines of force is incorrect and should not be used in textbooks of many types to educate students, because each fine particle of the steel or iron filings when placed in the field of the magnet under the paper becomes a miniature magnet in itself; thus the total picture is incorrect and misleading. As each miniature magnet, then attracts and repels, the picture is distorted to represent a mistaken concept."

Today, it is still taught in schools that magnetic energies flow in a semicircle from one pole to the other, usually the South pole to the North pole. This experiment proves that magnetism doesn't flow in that direction. "The simple test to support this incorrectness is to take a three- to six-inch bar or cylinder magnet and place it on a wood or plastic table, any base material that is not magnetic. Next, take a straight pin and, holding it between the thumb and index finger, place it at one end of the magnet. Moving the pin in contact with the magnet, at the exact or almost exact center of the magnet you will find one fractional place at that center where there is NO PULL. Therefore, no measurable amount of magnetism exists at the direct center of the magnet."

Another experiment they describe proves that magnetism flows in both directions simultaneously, South to North and North to South. "This test consists of a microscope slide, a few drops of diluted sulfuric acid, a medium power telescope, placing a magnet at each end of the slide, the diluted acid touching each magnet. Microscopic viewing after a few minutes allows one to see the energies of the two pole effects and the two directional movements of the sulfuric acid hydrogen bubble movement." The North pole of one magnet should be facing the South pole of the other for this experiment.

That says a lot right there. Uncle Al's alma mater is Michigan State (Moo U) and Uncle Al saw the cow magnet display in Anthony Hall. Yer full of it.

1) http://www.unitednuclear.com/magnets.htm
Bottom of display. THAT IS A MAGNET, GIT. Cow magnets are cheap multipolar crap designed to grab snippets of barbed wire from bailed hay. New Age hind gut fermenters buy them at 10X-50X farmer cost.

http://www.biomagnetic.org/mm.html

2) Yer cow magnet is 1600 gauss. Yer basic MRI magnet is 10,000-20,000 gauss. Yer basic beam particle accelerator steering magnet is 90,000 gauss.

http://cast.web.cern.ch/CAST/CASTwebB/CAST.htm

Alnico is crap. It is easily demagnetized,

http://my.execpc.com/~rhoadley/magtypes.htm
http://www.e-magnet.cn/productsc6.html
Alnico numbers. Ludicrously bad.
http://www.e-magnet.cn/NdFeB-N30.htm
NdFeB numbers. Manly!

If a tap on the should gets your attention, then a mammoth impact from a wreaking ball ought to do something.

3) Water is diamagnetic, git, -72x10(-6) emu. That is fairly large as these things go, and in exactly the wrong direction for your spew. Yer blowing it out yer nether aperture.

http://www.reade.com/Particle_Briefings/magnetic_susceptibilities.html

4) http://www.freefarts.com/farts.html
Move cursor over blinkers to hear all about Magnet Power.

Uncle Al,

I've never been to Anthony Hall or to Michigan State. By the way, you didn't major in English did you?

The only reason I recommended using an alnico cow magnet is because they're cheap and available. They do demagnetize easily. However, they are unipolar magnets. One end of the "cow magnet" is the North pole and the opposite end is the South pole. I have a magnetometer that can tell the difference between North and South pole energy. A compass can be used to check the polarites too. The side of the compass marked 'North' is the North pole of the compass magnet and the side marked 'South' is the South pole of the compass magnet.

A magnetic field doesn't have to be 10,000 gauss or more to have a significant effect on living organisms. Those who say it does have obviously never done any experiments with lower gauss magnets themselves. I have obtained magnets from the Albert Roy Davis Lab and reproduced some of their basic experments.

As for magnetized water, the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense sponsored a study of magnetized water for industrial use titled, "Magnetic Treatment of Water", in 1973. It clearly states in the study that no one argues whether magnetic treatment is effective or not, and that the Soviet Union has used magnetized water for many years with great economic benefit. You can look up "Magnetobiology" or "Magnetized Water in the Soviet Union" on google for more information. The 1973 study by the U.S. can be found on the web too.

It seems there are a gazillion new-age snake-oil hucksters out there trying to cash in on the scientific illiteracy of the general public with garbage like this.

Water doesn't "magnetize." Sorry.

This "north & south pole" spiel is a variation on the older magnetic-water hoax. Gotta love how it's substantiated by unsubstantiated claims that it was done in Russia.

Here's a link to a quick list of typical scams of this kind. http://www.chem1.com/CQ/magscams.html

I wonder why such scams aren't prosecuted for the frauds they are, taking money from impressionable (and often desperate, ill, and poor) people based on demonstrably false claims.

Its a wonder that Mr Junior Scientist has'nt looked up the following Super Scam magnetic site.
Put a ring on each finger and more on your toes ...And Live Forever. Hahahaha.
And while you are about it, add another one to your nose. See... www.alexchiu.com
But in all seriousness...I do believe that pidgeons are supposed to have a minute amount of iron oxide in the bone between their eyes, which does help them in flying back to their 'home' using the Earths magnetic field, when the sun is not visible.
Ameoba, and other pond life, when placed on a microscope slide....do exhibit movement when a magnet it placed near them. But this is believed due to the minute quantity of iron oxide within their cell that exerts the pull.

You can not prove it.
If you can then talk to James Randi he will give you more than a million dollars.

Dear Mr. "Scientist",
If you want clear-thinking people to take you seriously, you must provide detailed explanations of your experimental designs and results. For example: How many replications of your rose experiment did you perform? What sorts of variables did you consider? Which variables were you able to control? How did you control them? In short, you need to give your readers some means of repeating your experiments accurately, so that they may judge for themselves.
As they stand, your posts amount to a commercial advertisement and I would recommend that they be removed from the forum if it were not for the fact that they are marvelously instructive.
Your writing beautifully demonstrates, by negative example, the importance of clear scientific writing and the reasons that communities of real scientists have adopted rather rigid writing style guidelines in their publications. In fact, I think I may use your posts as reading material for students in my Introduction to Critical Thinking class this fall. Until you can demonstrate the validity of your claims with proper descriptions of your experiments, you should be regarded as a fraud by anybody who knows how to think clearly.

Read how an MRI works. Sinai-Grace Hospital

As you'll find, atoms are magnetic. Everything is made of atoms. The nucleus of a hydrogen atom is magnetic. Water is mostly hydrogen. We are made up of mostly water. See the connection?

If you'd like to read about some magnet therapy studies go to www.therionresearch.com. They have dozens of them on their site. Healing With Magnets, by Gary Null, has plenty of studies in it too. There are other books on magnet therapy with even more studies in them.

The point of my posts was to let people know that there is scientific evidence supporting magnet therapy. If you're curious, look up more information yourself. If you're convinced you already know the answers without having spent any time researching it on your own, then don't. Just be sure to explain that kind of "critical thinking" to your students.

Liar - Clever Hans to polywater. LIAR.

Scientist ... you are not.

What you are is either:

A. A charlatan, a fraud, and a self-serving liar.

B. Demonstrating a clear and present inability to engage your brain in an intellectual pursuit.

Which is it? A? B? Or both?

If it wasn't that others might take you and your drivel seriously you'd be laughable.

"Scientist"
You are seriously mislead in a number of ways.
First, and most important, you need to realize that critical thinking does NOT mean that one is obligated to take all ideas seriously. You happen to be talking about a field (magnetic therapy) that has been largely discredited by reasonable scientists. It would be very cool if you were to present a good reason for people to take the field seriously. However, you have not done that. Your descriptions of studies are totally inadequate, and the sources you cite are invalid, in one case because you have misunderstood the information (Sinai-Grace), and in the other cases because the authors (Gary Null and Therion Research) have very clear commercial interests. Such sources have no place in a scientific discussion, for the very good reason that the authors have clear conflicts of interest. A critical thinking person has very good reason to shoot you down.

By the way, I encourage anybody reading this to look up Gary Null (Quack City) and Therion Research (Scam City). Therion is especially bad.

Secondly, the Sinai-Grace site you reference presents a very very simplistic explanation of how MRI works. They give one paragraph intended to give an introduction to people who have never been introduced to the concepts upon which MRI is based. It's fine for its purposes, but it is completely inadequate as a defense of magnet therapy. Please notice that I am not questioning the expertise of the Sinai-Grace faculty. I am absolutely questioning your ability to cite an appropriate source.

Here's a vastly more thorough resource:
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/mri.htm
You will see that there is no simplistic claim that atoms are magnetic.

Finally, it is very clear to anybody who knows even a little bit about atomic structure that you have no understanding of what magnetism is or where it comes from. It makes no sense, for example, to say that an atom or its nucleus is "magnetic". Do you mean diamagnetic or paramagnetic? Do you understand that molecules have very different properties from the individual atoms of which they are comprised? For that matter, do you understand that whole organisms have very different properties from the molecules of which they are comprised? Your extrapolation, while it may appear logical to somebody who doesn't know any better, is utterly invalid. Critical thinkers understand that wild extrapolations are foolish at best.

Here are some decent resources regarding the magnetic properties of water.
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/magnetic.html
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/homeop.html
Here are a couple that do a fair job of explaining why intelligent people have no obligation to take you seriously: http://www.chem1.com/CQ/
http://www.chem1.com/CQ/magwatscams.html

Here is why everybody is laughing at you:
You have begun a discussion about something you appear to know almost nothing about with a group of people who happen to be educated about the subject. You have taken the misguided step of labelling yourself a scientist when it is clear to any actual scientist that you have no clue about how scientific research works or how scientists report their findings, and what's worse, you have openly demonstrated a complete ignorance of even the most basic information which you should have learned in high school Chemistry. Frankly, we are right to laugh you out of the proverbial building.

One has to suppose that you intend to make money by selling magnet therapy goods or services to people who would be better off holding onto their money instead of throwing it away in your direction. If this is indeed your plan, then I urge you to reconsider; if you must pursue a profit incentive, then find a field that has a good chance of doing people some good. If you do enter the magnet therapy field with profitable intentions, then you deserve the contempt of thinking people, if not a special place in Hell.

I do not pretend to know all the answers, but I know how to evaluate claims. That's what Critical Thinking means. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You have provided none.

Some studies truly proved magnets can relieve pain. http://echeblahblah.blogspot.com/2005/09/magnets-attract-big-bucks.html

Andrei wrote:
"Some studies truly proved magnets can relieve pain."

Andrei I know this may come as a huge shock to you but blogspot.com is not the place where anyone with an IQ above room temperature looks for proof of anything except the old maxim: "A sucker is born every minute."

A fool and his money are soon parted. Are you the victim or the vicmimizer?

Ah well, this is a rough spot to try to talk about any kind of science that is out of the mainstream as most of the nerds that hang around here don't know much about the history (and mistakes) of science.

Yea, I have slept on a magnetic pad that my wife swears by, and it was "different". And yes, there are a lot of huchsters out there selling stuff they don't understand. And that is the point: we don't understand what effect magnetism might have on the human body. To say that the magnetic pad my wife swears by (she is a non-scientist, but believes she sleeps better on it) doesn't affect the bloodflow seems to be closing the door on something that might just be true.

Let's just say this is an interesting field that may or may not pay off. Forget the nay-sayers and do your own research. Learn the scientific method and follow your curosity.

Sparky:
I have no idea your wife sleeps better on it. I've no doubt I could exchange her pad tomorrow night with one that looks exactly like it and has no magnetic field at all and she'd never know the difference.

Science is defined by provable.

So lets put forth a reasonable double blind study.
1. You hire someone a pad, identical in every way to the one your wife has but non-magnetic.
2. You give someone the keys to your house and tell them on some day, any day, in the next 6 months to swap the two pads.
3. If it is science your wife can pin-point the day the pads were swapped even though she doesn't know when and you don't know when.
4. Nonsense is if she can't.

I'll put $100 on the fact that she continues to sleep through the night content in her placebo effect.

If you read the article first, maybe you can then judge.

I don't waste my time reading junk. Point me to an article in a peer reviewed journal and I'll look at it the next time I am in the library.

L ... I ... B ... R ... A ... R ... Y

Perhaps you remember them. They used to be used by people other than in colleges and universities.