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Birds aren't the only ones using magnetic fields - so do COWS!!!

AlaskaDenise

AlaskaDenise

In Memoriam
Cows Tend To Face North-South


Don't be fooled by those big bovine eyes and the mouth slowly chewing cud?cows have a magnetic personality.

At least that?s the claim made by German researchers in the August 26<SUP>th</SUP> issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Using Google Earth images, the scientists looked down on over 8,000 cattle around the world. And, when grazing or resting, cows tended to face either magnetic north or south.

The researchers combined field observations with the satellite data and discovered that herds of both deer and cattle tend to align themselves north-south. Factors like wind and the angle of the sun had little bearing on how the animals stood. More often than not, like needles of a compass, heads swiveled northward. While it?s been known that birds, bees and fish use the earth?s magnetic fields for orientation, this study is the first to point to a magnetic sense in large mammals. The scientists speculate that this behavior may allow the animals to stay spatially oriented. In case danger lurks and a cow needs to make any sudden?moos.

?Adam Hinterthuer

http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=FB9B3CC3-E299-DCDD-838FD534037D00CB
 
Re: Birds aren't the only ones using magnetic fields - so do COWS!!!

thinking again and reading it in our local newspaper, I undelete.

------------------------
doesn't make sense.
Cows don't migrate from Germany to Alaska, they needn't navigate.
How they put their head when resting hardly has an impact.
I'd bet, it's the sun. You won't put your head in the sun,
when resting on a pasture-ground.
(as a cow, I mean)
---------------------

they argue, that it can't be the sun because else the orientation
would depend on the time of day (which it doesn't)

I argue, that it could be a habit developed over time.
They found their favourite direction once, depending on the sun.
And then they kept that direction, looking at a fixed place,
also orienting like the other cows.
I noticed earlier that cows usually look in the same direction
when resting, but didn't realise that they orientate North-South
 
Re: Birds aren't the only ones using magnetic fields - so do COWS!!!

Maybe before domestication they were migratory .... how long have they been domesticated?
 
Re: Birds aren't the only ones using magnetic fields - so do COWS!!!

I've seen in movies that they have one leader-cow and the others
follow it. So magnetism sensitivity could be restricted to
leader-cows. But it's not so important to find specific places
or bredding grounds, when you eat grass.
And it's not important to use it when they lay down
on a meadow.
Maybe new resting cows usually just look how the others
are directed
 
Re: Birds aren't the only ones using magnetic fields - so do COWS!!!

I like the practice of feng shui by cows. :)

even bacteria have a small amount of magnetite. ( magnétite )
they don't migrate :D
but they must " recognise " up and down. It is useful when you live in a puddle. ( flaque d'eau ) , you must " know" where is up and where is down.
I do not have documentation on hand. It was in a book by Stephen Jay Gould.

Humans also have some magnetic crystals in some joints, and in the head, near the inner ear and in the mastoid.
Humans don't migrate much currently , but must have some orientation to the Earth.
 
Re: Birds aren't the only ones using magnetic fields - so do COWS!!!

After so much cow milk, and now the entering nanobotfood, humans will have it also, like the "Magneto" Marvel.
Or we have it all the time but because of that's overhelming microwave radiation our senses are crippled (more true).

I must relocate those TV/PC intruder on North, than I should be right centered ... :)

Jokes apart, we all have some field, when we have el. impulses all throughout the body.
 
Re: Birds aren't the only ones using magnetic fields - so do COWS!!!

more fresh news about bacteria and magnetism :)
Researchers Reveal Mystery Of Bacterial Magnetism

ScienceDaily (Oct. 21, 2006) — Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and Purdue University have shed light on one of microbiology's most fascinating mysteries--why some bacteria are naturally magnetic. Their description of how being magnetic "helps" the bacteria is reported in the August 2006 issue of the Biophysical Journal.


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061021115811.htm



NRL researcher Dr. Paul Sheehan adds, "by mathematically modeling their motion, we determined that being magnetic actually makes the bacteria much more sensitive to oxygen when in a magnetic field, so that they swim away from oxygen at much lower concentrations." It is as if the climber gets tired and turns around sooner when heading up the mountain, keeping her from heading too far in the wrong direction. And the stronger the magnetic field, the bigger the effect. The scientists do not yet know how the magnetic field has this affect on the bacteria, and are currently conducting additional experiments to help answer that question.
 
Re: Birds aren't the only ones using magnetic fields - so do COWS!!!

Anne said:
Humans also have some magnetic crystals in some joints, and in the head, near the inner ear and in the mastoid.
Humans don't migrate much currently , but must have some orientation to the Earth.
Click to expand...

Humans migrate very much (more than cows) and spend money
on compasses to orientate.
Can you tell where is North just by using the magnetic crystals
in your body ?
 
Re: Birds aren't the only ones using magnetic fields - so do COWS!!!

:) I can't because I don't migrate as well ( and I use the sun to know where I am ) .. but Cromagnon or Neanderthal perhaps ?
 
Re: Birds aren't the only ones using magnetic fields - so do COWS!!!

It's time to put that alum. shielding helmet on ... :)
 
Re: Birds aren't the only ones using magnetic fields - so do COWS!!!

why should they ? They could have oriented by the sun and stars as well.
Well, we could start a poll...
 
Re: Birds aren't the only ones using magnetic fields - so do COWS!!!

Other large mammals like wildebeest, reindeer, bison etc. make long migrations may be they found it handy, or it was just inherited from the bacteria but is now vestigial.
 
Re: Birds aren't the only ones using magnetic fields - so do COWS!!!

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2008/08/22/0803650105

http://www.wissenschaft.de/wissenschaft/news/294771.html
(in German)

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/5965518.html

http://www.uni-due.de/zoology/begall/



I don't buy it (yet).
Is there any place where this is being discussed ?
Some newspaper or journal with much traffic


-------edit--------
The findings are "very interesting and not at all implausible," said
Caltech geobiologist Joseph Kirschvink, who was also not involved in the
research. "We have to remember that whales are descended from a common
ancestor of [cows], so this is not a surprise given what we know about
whales."

What the benefit could be for cows, however, remains a mystery. It might
help them find their way home, experts said, or perhaps it is simply a
vestigial sense that is no longer used for any purpose.


Experts acknowledged that the research almost certainly has no practical
applications
 
Re: Birds aren't the only ones using magnetic fields - so do COWS!!!

Many people have no sense of direction, at least none they are aware of.

However, if this is true (and I believe it is) about REM sleep cycles, then our bodies likely have some deep sense of the magnetic field.
 
Re: Birds aren't the only ones using magnetic fields - so do COWS!!!

And on that farm the cows face north

They could be the world?s smelliest magnets. Grazing cows tend to face the North and South Poles, claims a new study of 308 herds made using Google Earth satellite photos.

The ungulate?s orientation suggests that they, like migratory birds, sea turtles and monarch butterflies, tune into Earth?s magnetic fields, says Hynek Burda, a biologist at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.

Even the greenest of cowboys knows that cattle in a herd tend to align themselves in the same general direction, and researchers have argued that's because the animals are basking in the sun or clumping together to stay warm. Yet in the 10,000 years since humans domesticated cattle, their geomagnetic orientation has gone unnoticed, or at least unrecorded, Berda says.

His team scoured satellite images of herds on six continents, identifying more than 8,000 beef and dairy cows. Plotted onto a compass, the animals? orientations weren?t random. On average, cows faced five degrees off of geographic north or south. Live observations of hundreds of deer herds and their snow tracks revealed the same trend.
True north

Further analysis of cattle showed that in locations where the angle between the geographic and magnetic poles differs most - at extreme latitudes and in places where the geology creates a stronger field - cows line up with the magnetic poles and are further from the geographical poles. For instance, cows in Oregon, which is relatively far north and subject to a strong magnetic field, face 17.5 degrees off of true north.

?This is a very curious phenomenon,? says Wolfgang Wiltschko, of Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt. ?It is unclear whether it is in any way related to orientation and navigation.?

Why might an animal known for languor need an internal compass? ?These are animals that originally lived in dense forests or in grasslands, prairies, savannahs and steppes without landmarks,? Burda says.

Equally mysterious is how animals zero in on Earth?s weak magnetic fields. Some birds have iron crystals in their beaks, and fruit flies seem to use a blue light-detecting protein. As for cows, ?I have no real idea,? he says.

Journal reference: PNAS (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0803650105)
Related Articles

Weblinks

 
Re: Birds aren't the only ones using magnetic fields - so do COWS!!!

Further analysis of cattle showed that in locations where the angle between the geographic and magnetic poles differs most - at extreme latitudes and in places where the geology creates a stronger field - cows line up with the magnetic poles and are further from the geographical poles. For instance, cows in Oregon, which is relatively far north and subject to a strong magnetic field, face 17.5 degrees off of true north.
------------------------

we'll have to look at the data to decide how big this effect is
and whether it can be explained by the narrower sun in the North
or other things.
Further experiments will show...
 
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