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In the past week or so there have been several news articles from major news sources including this one from CBS about a boy that has apparent magnetic powers (metal things stick to him).

Is it possible that someone could have properties similar to a magnet that would allow metal to stick to them or is this something like sweat glands gone crazy?

Is this article something that could be taken seriously? Have there been others like it before?

Oddthinking
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    I've actually seen this one before. Curiously when the skin is covered in talcum powder, the "magnetic" powers disappear. – Monkey Tuesday May 18 '11 at 04:06
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    @Monkey I believe it's due to having smoother than normal skin, but I can't find evidence of any of them coming forward for testing. James Randi challenged one man to the talcum powder test, but it never eventuated. – John Lyon May 18 '11 at 04:37
  • Anyone have a six-year old child? Do coins stick to all smooth skin? – Oddthinking May 18 '11 at 05:06
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    @jozzas Yeah, Ive been trying to find the particulars on that case. I think it has something more to do with the amount of oil on the skin, but I haven't yet been able to locate the specifics. However, as of now, I'm leaning back slightly just like the kid in the video and I've managed to catch $1.27 on my chest. Alot seems to depend on the angle the kid is standing at. – Monkey Tuesday May 18 '11 at 05:26
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    And yet nobody tried a compass needle. #fail – Konrad Rudolph May 18 '11 at 08:51
  • @Konrad - to generalize your comment, "... or any other magnetic field measurement at a non-zero distance to the skin". – user5341 May 18 '11 at 16:35
  • This one's on the top of the list at randi.org today – Monkey Tuesday May 18 '11 at 21:17
  • This claim would be easy to test with a magnetometer. If they don't allow themselves to be tested, there is no proof and the claim can be dismissed. – Chris Dennett May 19 '11 at 17:07
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    Magnetometer?! Quick, someone call the ghost hunters! – Monkey Tuesday May 19 '11 at 18:21
  • This could be debunked by describing ways magnetic fields are generated, and how a normal, unmodified human could or could not generate fields in those ways. There's not enough current in the human body to generate an electromagentic field, but what if the parents fed him iron supplements for decades and had him sleep in a steady magnetic field each night? How much iron could the body naturally store in a form that could be polarized, and how much of a field would it generate for the few hours it would take in the morning for them to reorient? I don't have the time, but perhaps you do... – Adam Davis May 26 '11 at 23:00
  • @Adam: I'm sure you're right, but I'd be careful of non-experimental reasoning. Many things have seemed impossible from argument alone. One of my favorites - if a simple rubber ball is simply dropped from height h onto a stationary level surface, can it bounce to a higher height than h? – Mike Dunlavey May 27 '11 at 01:11
  • @Monkey: Are those coins magnetic? – Mike Dunlavey May 27 '11 at 01:25
  • I don't recognize the coins, but there are only 3 truly ferromagnetic metals, iron, nickel and cobalt, so perhaps someone who recognizes them can tell us what they are composed of. Wait, did you mean the coins in the video, or the ones I was using on myself? – Monkey Tuesday May 27 '11 at 01:51
  • @adam:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_poisoning ; http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378427498002793 – horatio Jun 22 '11 at 18:55
  • All hogwash. Anyone remember the spoon hanging on the nose trick? Same principal. Especially if you take the picture from the correct angle the 'magnetic human' can lean back a bit and it looks even more dramatic. It's all science; surface tension, body oil, angle, gravity, etc. Works even better if you're fat. –  Sep 16 '11 at 19:08
  • Here's a great video of James Randi applying talcum powder to one such "Magnetic Man", and unsurprisingly his powers vanish afterwards. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTVWMY8EZCA – John Lyon Sep 22 '11 at 01:29
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    @jozzas - Doesn't really disprove that the person is hoaxing it, just that it's not due to magnetic force. If the person has unusually stick skin (as seems to be the case) for some reason then calling ones self “magnetic” is just poor word choice as opposed to outright fraud or a hoax. – rjzii Oct 23 '12 at 17:51

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James Randi wrote about this exact boy HERE:

As you might have seen on a video clip from one of the programs I did on Seoul Broadcasting a few years ago, I defeated the similar claims of a Chinese gentleman who even stuck a porcelain toilet-lid to his own son’s chest to prove how magnetic his whole family was. I dusted father and son with talcum powder, and their powers evaporated…

The writeup on the referenced Chinese gentleman is HERE.

Randi also points out that aluminum and copper stick to him (not sure where this was seen/documented), and that this rules out the magnetism hypothesis.

So... does this disprove this specific case? Not necessarily. The family would simply need to be willing to douse their son in oil or talcum powder or have him put on a shirt to really illustrate that it's not a hoax. Prior incidences of similar "powers" having been disproved sways me much more in the "hoax" direction.

Hendy
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