Moo North: Cows Sense Earth's Magnetism
by Nell Greenfieldboyce, All Things Considered, NPR Radio, August 25, 2008
A new study suggests that cows sense the Earth's magnetic field and use it to line up their bodies so they face either north or south when grazing or resting.
The discovery was made by a team led by Hynek Burda of the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany. "I think the really amazing thing is that hunters and herdsmen and farmers didn't notice it," Burda says. . . .
Eventually, his team used Google Earth to look at more than 8,500 cows, over 300 pastures all around the world, according to a report in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
By analyzing the images, the team found that cows tend to face either magnetic north or south when grazing or resting.
"Most of them actually align in a north-south direction," says Burda, and this held true regardless of where the sun was, or how the wind blew. . . .
~ Complete story here
by Nell Greenfieldboyce, All Things Considered, NPR Radio, August 25, 2008
A new study suggests that cows sense the Earth's magnetic field and use it to line up their bodies so they face either north or south when grazing or resting.
The discovery was made by a team led by Hynek Burda of the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany. "I think the really amazing thing is that hunters and herdsmen and farmers didn't notice it," Burda says. . . .
Eventually, his team used Google Earth to look at more than 8,500 cows, over 300 pastures all around the world, according to a report in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
By analyzing the images, the team found that cows tend to face either magnetic north or south when grazing or resting.
"Most of them actually align in a north-south direction," says Burda, and this held true regardless of where the sun was, or how the wind blew. . . .
~ Complete story here
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