Slashdot Mirror
Special Molecule Gives Birds a Magnetic Biocompass
Aaron Rowe writes "CORDIS news reports that a team of scientists has identified a family of molecules called cryptochromes that allow migratory birds to sense magnetic fields. Curiously enough, these molecules only function when accompanied by blue light. The article also mentions, 'The researchers also suggest that, as cryptochromes have been strongly conserved throughout evolution, all biological organisms could have the ability to detect magnetic fields, even if they do not use them.'"
i think it is teh funnyz
/.'s can migrate to the North Pole
Where do I sign up to get these powers enabled? I totally would go for it, even if it is a really lame 6th or 7th sense. Like, if I was lost in the woods with no cell phone and nothing to make a shadow with, and no running water... it could be mildly useful!
Does a line appended to your comment give your post meaning in and of itself, or only in relation to those without?
This explains a lot, like how i feel more at peace while surrounded by wifi fields and the magnetic fields of my computer.
Are those the same ones in men which turn a simple road trip into an interstate chase for hamburgers, fireworks, and boos that ultimatly end badly?
Seems bout' right.
When he gets off the plane at DIA, his first question is which way to north. Once he has his berings, he always knows his directions. Even when traveling through the mountains, day or night, he is able to figure out the direction quickly. Pretty impressive. What I find interesting is that plane travels screws him up. Once on the ground, If he does not get his bearing quickl, he appears to get more uncomfortable as time passes.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
And since radio is just a modulated electromagnetic signal, we should be able to pick up Rock 'n Roll on our teeth by exposing them to blue LEDs. It remains only to train our brains to understand this new sixth sense...
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Where he was reading Brief History of Time and read "light is effected by gravity", to which he concluded that it was easier to drop things in the dark.
-1 offtopic.
Mind you, maybe I could strap a blue LED to an albatross and find my way home when I'm drunk.
+1 ontopic.
Task Mangler
Truly gives a whole new meaning to "A good sense of direction"
This has NOTHING to do with this story, and I apologize.
How come there are no 9/11/2001 stories today on Slashdot? Did we all forget? Is it not important enough anymore to warrant a story?
It's not only insulting, but downright strange that there hasn't been ONE main story about it today. What the hell is going on?
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I hope they don't get too confused:
1 5/1544240g _South_
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/
http://digg.com/general_sciences/North_Pole_Movin
No wonder those latent genes are turned off.
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
What is the difference between a magnet and a slashdot moderator? The magnet has a positive side.
I'm way ahead of you.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
I know birds aren't smartest creatures, but I don't remember if they can memorize there migration path (though I assume not.) Could the hightening of this magnetic sense during certain seasonal light conditions direct the birds to follow the earth's magnetic field, guiding them until they encounter an area with lighting conditions sufficient to disrupt the sense?
Demented But Determined.
Gnaa, Nigeria
We at the GNAA (Gay Nigger Association of America) would like to wish you seasons greetings on this most glorious day.
As we reach the fifth anniversary of the momentous destruction of two large ugly buildings by the highly trained agents of mossad (Israels notorious anti-gentile secret service), and the war against sandniggers everywhere that ensued, we have entered into what is widely recognised as a golden age of trolling. This could not have been possible without the assistance of YOU!
Without the glorious genocidal activites of hooknosed Jews, the gulliblity of pinko Slashbots soaking up whatever Michael Moore shits out, the whining of eurotrash clinging to the tattered remnants of Socialism, and of course, without the poorly washed Muslims who, as we speak, continue their holy and righteous Jihad against the evils of the Israeli Bus Service. Without these people, without you people, our jobs would be so much more taxing, and far less rewarding.
As your family gathers around the Osama Tree to exchange your gifts of toy Boeings and charred Firemen, we at the GNAA hope that you can all get together in celebration. To pass down your memories of the shock, awe, and arousal you felt. To recall your joy as your anti-Bush FUD was modded to +5, insightful. To remember your hilarious puns at the size of John Kerry's chin, and how they earned you +o in #politics. To giggle girlishly at how your crippling zergrush wowed all who viewed your rancidly coloured MIDI infested xanga blog.
But most importantly of all. The GNAA would also like to issue our fondest desire for world peace. And hold firm in our resolve that the bloodshed can only be resolved through the pacifying and unifying acts of male-on-male sodomy and fellatio, and through a peaceful male-only world. Can the leaders of the world put aside their differences once and for all and love their fellow man? Can we swap our rusty kalashnikovs for a warm meaty dong? Our explosive belts for exploding rectums? We can only hope.
Happy Holidays!
From The Gay Nigger Association of America
About WTC
The World Trade Center (WTC) was built in the 1960's by well-known drug-addicted architect Guy Niguere. On massive levels of barbiturates at the time, Niguere made many mistakes in the design of the building, but structurally and stylistically. This led to the towers easy destruction by the Israeli.
About GNAA:
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY NIGGERS.
Are you GAY ?
Are you a NIGGER ?
Are you a GAY NIGGER ?
If you answered "Yes" to all of the above questions, then GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for!
Join GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time GNAA member.
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the fastest-growing GAY NIGGER community with THOUSANDS of members all over United States of America and the World! You, too, can be a part of GNAA if you join today!
Why not? It's quick and easy - only 3 simple steps!
This comment copyright (c) 2006 Gay Nigger Association of America. All rights reserved.
So we could have extra powers? Science may not have discovered everything yet? Would be interesting. Perhaps the only people that really feel it are those that travel around the world allot to different areas of magnetic force on the globe. Thats not jet lag...thats just your body realigning itself to the magnetic fields. j/k
This is interesting in the sense that these are very low frequency (~0Hz) fields which transfer much less power to the molecule which interacts with it than say visible light which operates at a much higher frequency and is comprised of a coupled electric and magnetic field. Of course the latter has been known to be sensed by sighted animals for quite some time. One way to view this is as an extension of the mechanism of vision- a photon causes a fast (actually one of the fastest reactions known) trans->cis conformational shift in retinol which drives a voltage down the optic nerve... the mechanism described in the FTA is the next step: once a radical is formed, it responds in a magnetic field. Apparently this response is also sensed. Interesting finding!
Avoid K-mart's parking lot in October.
I will dispute their statement about pigeons though. I recall watching or reading something where the scientists put trackers on homing pigeons to discover how they found their way around. Turns out they follow landmarks.
The pigeons often took indirect routes, because they were following a road. The scientists didn't figure this out even after they realized the paths were very odd... it didn't click until someone looked at a road map.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Anecdotally, I have heard of many people "sensing" the magnetic field of an MRI scanner. I have had a few MRI's done on myself, and can attest to this feeling. It is strange, mostly in the head, somewhat like when one feels dizzy or just a tinge of seasickness. I think that is has something to do with the fact that as you enter the scanner, the field you experience changes quite rapidly. Once you are in the scanner, I haven't really noticed the queasiness as much, though it still feels strange. However, I attribute this second sensation more to the fact that one is contained inside a small tube with all kinds of weird noises and vibrations going around. So at the very least, some people seem to be sensitive to changing fields above some threshold.
This comes bundled with Human Condtion V1.0. For $19.99 you can upgrade to Navigation Power User.... or you can wait for MS Vista.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I think it is the blue that attracts my fist towards the screen.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
plese delete
...no midichloreans joke yet?
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
They mention the blue light necessity of this system, but they never really explain why it has to be blue light or what the light itself does (unless I've become illiterate). Can anyone explain (or at least make something plausible up) the whole blue light component of this mechanism?
Biological direction sensing with magnetite has been known for a couple of decades. Magnetic receptors in plants is an interesting twist. Having the sensor being light-dependent suggests a tie with phototropism. My question is, do the plants thrive better in one hemisphere than the other? North-seeking plants would be better adapted to the southern hemisphere, etc.
Do you bitch and moan and whine or do you fight even more?
Make the world better. Quit hating.
Blue light? This is possibly a stupid question, but isn't sunlight yellow?
I was conned by an old man in a cloak. It turns out those *were* the droids I was looking for.
The real reason there are blue lights in server rooms. They draw us in. And if caffine isn't enough.... http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/060201_blu e_light.html
Dude, you're made out of stuff that casts a shadow, unless there's no light.
Though several of the proceeding posts appear to take one or both of these into account.
I think you've just hit upon a new theory as to why the dinosaurs went extinct. Is there any evidence, for or against? How well are the dinosaur extinction event and the magnetic pole flips narrowed down, and could the dinosaur extinction be a delayed reaction?
I've know for a long time that many large birds freak out when a red laser pointer is shown anywhere near them. Especially large parrots. I'm not talking about pointing in their eyes, which is cruel to any animal. But just shining the red light nearby is enough to agitate them, and if shown near their head they will lose balance and fall from their tree.
These light sensitive molecules must be very important to the bird's balance as well as helping them migrate. I wonder if they use the magnetic field to remain upright as well, or if by the red light turning off the receptor magnetic-sensitive light receptor molecules, they temporarily go blind. REd light could be perceived to be much brighter to them than the other colors. Since if the red light shuts off the receptors, only a small amount must be blinding. It might be like flipping a light switch where all blue and green perception disappears and only red is left. I"m glad my eye's aren't affected by specific colors that way.
Maybe it's more to do with having your head put inside what is roughly equivalent to a small microwave?
I think you've just hit upon a new theory as to why the dinosaurs went extinct. Is there any evidence, for or against? How well are the dinosaur extinction event and the magnetic pole flips narrowed down, and could the dinosaur extinction be a delayed reaction?
Well, the thing is, magnetic pole reversals actually happen pretty often, according to Wikipedia at a rate of 1-5 events every million years. Since the dinosaurs lived 65-230 million years ago, by looking at this graph we can deduce that during their existence they experienced a few dozen pole reversals.
Now that I look at it though, it is somewhat interesting that the Cretaceous Long Normal, an abnormally long (~40 million year) period during which there were no pole reversals at all, ended around 15 million years before the dinosaurs disappeared. I personally think it's just a coincidence, though.
Let's not go getting ahead of ourselves. It is extremely well known amongst palaeontologists that a pole reversal took place shortly before dinosaur extinction. There's still no conclusive evidence, but it is a theory that's being explored.
It's probably a protein with a magnetic ligand that requires a specific energy to activate. Of course I wouldn't actually read the article.
-Ed
If blue light is an important factor, would that mean that the ability to navigate goes down towards dusk? Sounds like an experiment is needed.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
How is this news. This all sounded really familiar and old, and of course, the first site I went to on a google search took me to this from 2000. There's tons of stuff from 2004 on studies done with pidgeons. But this stuff is definitely not new.
My wife has anti-sense. I've been married 20mumble something years (to the same woman) and on those occasions where I can observe her sense of direction, it is almost always wrong (i.e. walk into the parking lot and she will forcefully walk in the opposite direction of the car. Of course, having been married this long, I just walk to the car and let her eventually find the way... sometimes even admiting "right again, dear.").
Anyhow, she is left-handed, so I wonder if that has any bearing on the issue?
More than likely, after thinking about it, it is just that females think more about non-tangible stuff - relationships, wondrering if the "stuff" just purchased was the right thing, etc. Whereas guys are thinging, more along the lines of "that was a lot for that crap", and, "where's the car, I want to get out of here!"
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Only truly deviant birds would choose to ignore such a great gift. Many suburban and urban geese (in vast numbers), as well as some species of cranes and other birds have thrown off the shackles of cryptochromes and chosen to stop migrating. Why buy the cow when you Get the milk for for free?[google cache of The Wall Street Journal]
FairTax baby!
I learned this in middle school biology so how is this possibly news? Maybe the blue light part, I dunno. Anyway, you know that movie the Core where all the birds fly into a building cuz the Earth's magnetic field is going whacko? Yeah, they knew it then too.
now stop reading and go play Dance Dance Revolution!
god did it, obviously
The Cell Phone companies and the Electrical Power Transmission companies have done studies, and those studies say that electrical fields can't possibly affect biological tissues.
No matter what goofy molecules ducks use to find their way to fly south for the winter.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
In Soviet Russia, magnetic fields detect you!
Might this be a ever so slight hint on the merits of certain types of magnetic therapy. I personally don't believe in that, but it has got to be at least a thought.
Birds? Blue-Light?
Q: What did the bird say when it flew over K-mart?
A: Cheap, cheap.
Have you read my journal today?
Yes you can. Just remove the cryptochromes and see if they can find their way. I'm sure we could just sew them back on afterward.
Sever the nerve associated with the little deposit of magnetic gunk, they still fly home more or less. Sever their olfactory nerve, and they get hopelessly lost.
It's a very badly written press release. In fact the actual science has zilch to do with birds and everything to do with plants using the same molecule. They described the way light and magnetic fields interact to change the way the plant stem grows, except in plants without the cryptochrome molecule.
Which is just basic, everyday scientific advancement: a very small and excruciatingly dull thing, presented with a tie-in to something more interesting in an attempt to look sexier and get funding. Scientists hate doing it, but if you want to keep doing science, that's what you do.
This article IS news, but only in the narrowest sense: new information. But after you take that new information, tie it in to something more interesting but only indirectly related (which you put at the front of the press release, and the actual new stuff at the end), then summarize it for Slashdot (skipping the stuff at the end), "news" becomes "olds".
One final note: when I call the work "small", I don't mean to dis the grad students who worked thousands of hours tending the plants, measuring them, putting that data into the computer, analyzing that data, probably cutting them open and measuring that... such immense grunt work for a minor advance [promptly blown up into something irrelevant by university's press department] is the heavy-lifting of science. It's gotta be done but it's not glamorous or even interesting.
Now we men have a valid excuse not to ask for directions. :p
Is it because we have learned how to use magnetics for navigation, so we therefore assume that animals capable of sensing magnetic fields must use it for navigation as well? The problem is that this is a false assumption.
--Birds can sense magnetic information. However, when the olfactory nerve is cut, they get lost even when the trigeminal nerve remains intact. Birds which have had the trigeminal nerve cut but which had the olfactory nerve left intact could find their way home. So the claim is that being able to sense magentic fields was not required for homing pigeons.
Still, it is generally accepted that homing pigeions have the wetwork required to sense magnetic fields. And if not used for navigation, then what? Why did such a sense develop?
Put another way, what other perceptive planes of information exist which might make being able to sense EM fields useful?
ALL organisms might have this ability?
Chi-wiz.
-FL
Of course, it's rather subtle... being that an "Inertial Guidance System" is a fancy way of saying gyroscope...
And, granted men generally don't get subtle very well (I should know, I am one), and the majority of nerds are men (well, male, at least), and since the majority of slashdot readers are nerds (all of them, possibly?) we can deduce that the majority of slashdot readers won't get the subtlety. And then take into account the fact that, in order to get mod points you really need to hang around slashdot more than usual, they're much more nerdy, and much more likely to be male, thus much less likely to pick up on subtle jokes, and really need it forced down their throats.
Consider it forced...
A friend of mine once told me he had known people who could walk into a house, put their hands on the wall, and somehow sense where the nails were, under the drywall.
According to a recent New Scientist article, homing pigeons use their nose to find home rather than the Earth's magnetic field.
From the article:
How 'bout you tie this guy down and shine intense blue light on him, then ask him which way is north?
The article says blue light is needed, although if these molecules are part of cells "inside" your brain/under your skin then I really don't see the connection. I don't think visible light wavelengths are able to penetrate human skin.
For a no.2, try putting him in the dark and asking him the same questions, making sure you whirl him around enough to lose his bearings. After its over you can buy him coffee or something. I'm sure he'll understand.
The guy on the following website http://www.bmezine.com/news/pubring/20040226.html says get got the power of magnetic vision using magnetic implants. Now I don't know if this really works but I found it interesting.
-- I forgot what my tag line was supposed to be... but I forgot... but it was good... real good.... laughing just thinking about it.
Before anyone thinks about getting such an implant, read this first, it's about a guy whose implant broke apart in his thumb...
the article gives a link to the french research agency cnrs, but that seems to be a dead end..anyone have a clue where the real science is posted
Why do people assume a bird needs to have some sort of internal magnetic compass to find its way during migration? Can't it look at the sun? You know, like we do?
... from the world's worst hunter.
I decided to hunt on the doe days after Thanksgiving. It had been raining cats and dogs for most of the week, but the vigilant weekend warrior that I am was not going to be deterred. I put on my new rubber boots and other hunting wear and headed for the woods. I waded several hundred yards thru my normal hunting ground, only it was all under a bout 1 foot of water. I noticed quickly that everything looked pretty much the same when underwater. I found my landmark and get a good sense of "the way out" by looking at some taller landmarks. My main landmark was this dead tree. It didn't take me long to lose hope in the hunt. Even if I shot a deer, it would be hell to drag it back in that muck, so I decided to head on in. I knew exactly in my head which way was out... I found my dead tree landmark to confirm it, only then I noticed there were two identical dead trees about 45 degrees apart. I felt this horrible feeling as my internal sense of direction would swing from dead tree to dead tree. After a few moments of terror that I would never make it out of the woods, I calmed myself and proceeded towards one of the dead trees and eventually exited the woods about 50 yards further up than I had originally came in. I learned a valuable lesson from this experience. My sense of direction is horrible, and not to be trusted.
Well that concludes this story... maybe next time I will tell how I was almost killed by a rampaging doe the previous year.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Any brief event that requires fifteen million years to exert an extinction is probably not the cause of said extinction. In fact, it's not even a coincidence as a coincidence requires concurrence in time.
Whenever I see a bolt of blue lightning, I have a strong urge to head for shelter and an inate sense of exactly where that shelter is. Seeing as none of my ancestors that I am aware of got struck by lightning, this must be genetic. *grin*
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Lots of people where I live got their wells positioned using a dowser by the name of Marcel Triau (who was kind of a local legend). He used to use a chain, of all things, and swing it to and fro, and where he said dig, you'd better dig (as far as the story goes). When you got the well digger there, some would try to move it (easier access for the truck, or what have you), and those that did would have a hard time of it, and invariably have to go to where Triau pointed out. Many other weird capabilities were attributed to him, which seem in some ways fantastical. I tried googling him, and only found an article on a "french coil" method of pest control for trees - http://mypage.direct.ca/j/jliving/pen06.htm (also one tiny mention in a local newspaper). Seems weird.
Funny thing is, he mentions magnetism as one possibility for why it works, and disavows any scientific knowledge on his part on why things work, but that they just "do". From the article: "Because we cannot scientifically define and analyze these laws many people disbelieve them. However, nature is full of mystery and even the working of our own bodies is not fully understood." Perhaps his "abilities" were actually derived from some form of this magnetic sense, which allowed him to sense differences in magnetic fields, from which he could learn which "feelings" meant water, using the chain as an antenna.
Interesting, I think, though I know that most Slashdotters are not subsribers to "dowsing" and have pointed out a study or two in the past showing dowsers to only have a random shot at finding things. But I personally feel that all sorts of stuff that is claimed, but unexplained and therefore disregarded, has been established as having merit using scientific principles.
Or maybe he was just lucky.
Vidar
The brains of a chicken, coupled with the claws of two eagles, may well hatch the eggs of our destruction.
So are people going to stop making fun of people who can see auras? Because at times I've been able to "see" magnetic fields. Admittedly, it was more often when I lived away from electricity for long periods of time, or at least had limited access to it.
I guess it's news that it's been verified by a scientific study, but other than that, there have been millions of people who know this already.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
We should be training these birds for credit card validation...
One quack good/accepted, two quacks bad/rejected.
Definately better than those stupid card swipe machines!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
I appear to have a similar talent, but mine only manifests when I am driving another nail into the wall.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
A semi-well known company was disappointed that the 9/11 attack did not occur 2 months prior. It would have been a ton of free publicity for them.
Cat got your tongue? (something important seems to be missing from your comment ... like the body or the subject!)
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
You are correct. I was converting into x/20 format, which is what is usually quoted here. I did bad math.
For a second I thought you said you did bad meth
=):-O
Please stop stalking me, bro.
They say the one who will bring balance to The Force is full of cryptochromes.
Honest to God, this happened to me when I was about 13.
I had braces (for your teeth) for about 4 years, and just once, I must have created some crazy dental diode in my mouth, because picked up a radio transmittion of some kind.
I was lying on my bed reading a book, and I was convinced someone had left a TV on in an adjacent room. I kept hearing the faintest sounds of either speech or music, it was really hard to tell, and so quiet and muffled it almost wasn't there. I was alone in the house and NOT on any kind of drugs (prescription or otherwise). I also had no fillings in any of my teeth (not that it matters now-a-days, as they're all resin and not metal).
I got up several times to make sure a TV or radio wasn't on in another room, and of course as soon as I moved from the position I was lying in the noise would stop. I figured it out after about 5 minutes of feeling like an idiot, and it only worked if I held my head at a certain angle in a certain location in my bedroom. It worked for 20 or 30 minutes, and then stopped. I was never able to recreate the phenomenon again. =(
With the first link, the chain is forged.
I was overjoyed to find, among the links you so kindly provided, that human harrassment of non-migratory geese, such as the ones that destroy my yard and attack my children, is legally permissable!
It's a bit beyond what the authorities recommend, but I find that luring them into a shed or barn with corn and "harrassing" them strenously with a baseball bat solves the problem whilst providing a tasty dinner. The neighbors don't object as they might were you to "harrass" the geese with a shotgun.
I admit I'd not heard of the 'twin towers' before 9/11, but up until reading your post I'd assumed that the name implied that that there were, well, two of them.
Are you saying there were 7? The news reports didn't seem to bear that out - there were clearly two in the pictures.
The "World Trade Center" was complex of multiple buildings. The two large towers (buildings 1 and 2, the "twin towers") were the most visible part of the complex. When they collapsed, the enormous crush of falling and flaming debris destroyed and damaged many surrounding buldings. Building number 7 in the complex (which I referred to simply as "7" in my comment, since I thought that was obvious, in context, given the comment I was responding to) was badly damaged as the big buildings next to it collapsed, and had a hot fire burning in it for a while, and then it collapsed a few hours later.
Many crazy folks who were initially hoping to convince others that the main two towers had been brought down as part of some sort of inside job have had their theories solidly debunked. So, they're now focusing on the collapse of the damaged #7 (which has received less critical review for the reasons I mentioned in my last comment) as some sort of last-gasp way to prop up their conspiracy theories. No, they have no basis in fact, but these people became so invested in their fabrication that when countless studies of the collapse of the two large towers dismissed their craziness, they had to find something else to keep talking about (their only alternative being to admit that they were wrong).
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Well then we can all find out if the magnetic north is really shifting. Check your midichlorian level or the next best thing... here's an adfree wikipedia version
There are a lot of contradictory studies on bird navigation.
This news article discusses how robins get lost if one eye is patched (but only the right eye, not the left one) and talks about some experiments that indicate that pigeons navigate long distances using smell instead of sensing magnetic fields.
This beautiful paper (big pdf) indicates that pigeons navigate visually when near home, and by smell for longer distances, claiming "sensory inputs, being neither olfactory nor visual, do not substantially contribute to determining current position with respect to home."
So don't go sticking magnets all over your car in hopes of averting bird poop: if they can sense magnetic fields, it might not mean anything to them.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
why wouldn't the bird become disoriented when they are standing on power lines?
...in the 1970s, with special regard to Pidgeons. With relation to humans, it could explain the link between Lay Lines and those of us who find it easier to sleep and perform in specific locations and/or when facing a specific direction.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
If it was:
a) he would be able to tell you the direction of a pole, although to be generous maybe he would not know north from south--either way he would not have to ask which way is north;
b) he would have a much harder time in buildings. Most buildings have far too much electrical wiring to get a good reading from a compass.
c) he would not be able to do it with a cell phone up to his ear. Hold a cell phone to a compass sometime and see what happens, especially if it is on.
What your friend has is a very good "sense" of direction. Like sight it's really a post-sensory cognitive function--he's just better than most people at taking his various sensory inputs (sight, touch, equilibrium, etc) and translating them into transformations of himself through a fixed 3-D space.
I suppose it is possible that one of the sensory inputs informing this process is a slight ability to sense magnetic fields. But the fact is that compared to all the various electric equipment operating around us on a continual basis, the earth's magnetic field is actually quite weak. If someone could sense magnetic fields it most likely would not manifest itself as a sense of absolute direction. It would probably manifest itself it modern life as an ability to tell whether an appliance was plugged in, or a wire was live, or where the electrical cords run under the street or behind walls.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Why blue light?
Because blue light's special, of course.
You only have a one time pass.
..........FULL STOP.
Apparently, you've never actually gone out into the woods and looked at the trees, because if you did, then you would see that moss grows on all sides of a tree much of the time, and it sure doesn't "point" to any direction other than the prevailing moist wind that carry it's spores to the next downwind tree.
Flatlanders.... Sheesh.
This may be the method which animals become unsettled before an earthquake (supposedly). In the IEEE electrical engineering magazine 'Spectrum' a few months ago, there was a cover story which prevented evidence that large electric currents at low frequency circulate in the ground in the hours/days before the quake due to ferrous rock being crushed underground. With electric currents come magnetic fields that could disturb cryptochromes in an unusual way, giving the animal a wierd sensation and making them possibly act funny. Just a thought...
birds also fly at night
I think if a bird uses the sun and a bio clock it could also find the north. It's also known that they also folow main land marks, for example they follow roads and rail tracks. just a biological version of tomtom, at night they switch their ground tomtom map with a star map.
(bird voice) "at the next landmark turn left"
I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid. You're afraid of us. You're afraid of change.
Yes, at least in the middle latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, this is true. Sure, spores are everywhere, but since most mosses are very sensitive to sunlight and prefer shade, they do concentrate on the North side of trees. In some places this can be very subtle, yes... But if you look around at enough trees, you can see enough of a trend to point you roughly North.
I'd imagine the same would be true in the Southern Hemisphere, although they would point you South.
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer." -Adolf Hitler
"We are one Nation, we are one People." -The One 'leader'
Nothing in the article indicates that these molecules react to the direction of a magnetic field: just the intensity.
I suspect that this is an irrelevant side effect and the animals make no use of it at all.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
So there must be strong magnetic between boys and girls.