A lodestone is a naturally magnetized piece of the mineral magnetite.
It occurs in nature as the mineral magnetite.
What may be enabling the lobsters to sense magnetic fields is the mineral magnetite, the same material used for compass needles.
A. Magnets can occur naturally, such as in the case of lodestone, a strongly magnetic variety of the mineral magnetite.
For most creatures capable of orienting themselves with respect to magnetic fields, however, the mineral magnetite is still believed to be the major sensory agent.
Moreover, Spirit found the magnetism was caused by the mineral magnetite, especially magnetite that contained the element titanium.
Tarduno and his team determined where the volcanoes formed by analyzing the rock for the magnetic mineral magnetite.
These early compasses were made using lodestone, a special form of the mineral magnetite that aligns itself with the Earth's magnetic field.
When the bacteria ingest iron, proteins inside their bodies interact with it to produce tiny crystals of the mineral magnetite, the most magnetic mineral on Earth.
Magnetosomes are composed of the mineral magnetite or greigite and are surrounded by a lipid bilayer membrane.