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Scientists Discover Cows Point North

Posted by samzenpus on from the throw-away-your-compass dept.

Dr Sabine Begall and colleagues from the University of Duisburg-Essen have discovered that cows tend to point north. The researchers studied deer in the Czech Republic and looked at thousands of images of cattle on Google Earth. The animals tended to face north when eating or resting. "We conclude that the magnetic field is the only common and most likely factor responsible for the observed alignment," the scientists wrote in an article. I guess cows will become the must-have item for long-distance hikers now. Having an edible compass would come in handy if you get lost.

33 of 558 comments (clear)

  1. You too can be an armchair scientist. by suso · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is it possible? Yes. But I wonder how many factors they really looked into before coming to this conclusion. What about how cows perceive things like the locations of houses, barns and roads. Are a lot of farms on north/south roads or are fields on the south side of the farm so the cows are facing towards the barn or house? I don't know, but from reading the article, it doesn't sound like they looked into much other than making conclusions from Google Earth. What about the fact that aeriel photography is done during certain times of the day or during certain seasons. Surely those have an effect on cows. Poor science in my opinion. And the sad thing is that an article like this only causes people to start propogating facts that might be wrong. Not that what direction cows face is a big deal, but its common enough that it only propogates stupidity.

    And why use Google Earth? Indiana (I know cows are sacred in India) seems like a prime candidate for studying cows from space. In 2005 Indiana University released a complete set of aerial photos of the whole state that had as high as 6" per pixel resolution. Which is better than Google Earth.

    Besides that, how many good research scientists are going to promote their work by posting a link to Slashdot to an article in a newspaper.

    1. Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. by bugnuts · · Score: 5, Funny

      They may just like sun on their backs and not in their eyes.

      Next, these researchers will discover a bizarre new breed of Australian cows that like to point south.

    2. Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. by suso · · Score: 5, Funny

      Yes, but I also just wanted to be the first to call this finding bullshit. ;-)

    3. Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. by Thelasko · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I believe a cow's eyes are on the sides of their head. Not at the front of their head, like ours. Therefore, the sun would be in their right eye in the morning, and the left eye in the afternoon.

      --
      One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
    4. Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 5, Informative
      I don't see why you would think that considering sunlight is not a "scientific" conjecture, but anyway, from TFA:

      .

      Huge variations in the wind direction and sunlight in the areas where the beasts were found meant that the scientists were able to rule out those factors as being responsible for the direction they were facing.

    5. Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. by twoallbeefpatties · · Score: 5, Informative

      Huge variations in the wind direction and sunlight in the areas where the beasts were found meant that the scientists were able to rule out those factors as being responsible for the direction they were facing.

      Thanks for playing our game! Please accept this consolation prize - RTFA: The Home Game! Now you can play RTFA right from the comfort of your own television set!

      --
      Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
    6. Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. by jacquesm · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, I have this stash of about 400 neodymium magnets, I'm going to have lots of fun burrying them in the local farmers fields in exciting patterns.

      --
      MP3 Search Engine
    7. Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      A well-known scientist once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant cow." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the cow standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's cows all the way down!"

    8. Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. by QuantumPion · · Score: 5, Funny

      Maybe the cows know global warming is an imminent danger, and are trying to avert the situation by providing a net thrust on the Earth to push us into a higher orbit.

    9. Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, I have this stash of about 400 neodymium magnets, I'm going to have lots of fun burrying them in the local farmers fields in exciting patterns.

      Try to get them to spell out "eat mor chiken".

      --
      Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
    10. Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. by liam193 · · Score: 5, Funny

      I believe your right. It appears that the first was, in fact, a shorten version of the longer post. Both conveyed the same concept and nearly all details could be implied from the original statement.

      Furthermore, I believe it should be pointed out that the first post was only a single sentence in length; however, the second post was a full three paragraphs of text.

      I just wrote this to point out that your statement was indeed correct and appeared too short so I figured I should expand on it. Perhaps the second poster will understand a three paragraph explanation of your statement.

    11. Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. by speedingant · · Score: 5, Funny

      What happens when they graze at the north pole..? Do they stand up on end?

    12. Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. by s4ck · · Score: 5, Funny
      baldass and bignuts.. lolz..

      what was the comment again?

      ..

    13. Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. by Cumstien · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm still trying to get my cow to float on the surface of a small dish of water. Am I the only one having problems with this?

    14. Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. by fbjon · · Score: 5, Funny

      Speaking of correlation, who the hell tagged this story with "correlationisnotcausation"? As if the magnetic field would somehow align itself with the cows.

      --
      True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
    15. Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. by MightyYar · · Score: 5, Funny

      who the hell tagged this story with "correlationisnotcausation"?

      Clearly, they were referring to the Google practice of using cows to orient their aerial photographs northward.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    16. Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. by sir+fer · · Score: 5, Funny

      you sir resemble the southern end of north-facing cow

      --
      Debian FTW ;o)
    17. Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. by Xemu · · Score: 5, Interesting

      They may just like sun on their backs and not in their eyes.

      As most glider pilots can tell you, cows have their backs against the wind. We use them for wind cues during emergency landings.

      --
      Tell your friends about xenu.net
    18. Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. by solferino · · Score: 5, Funny

      Chickens are also fed a smaller version of these, just after birth.
      It's called a chick magnet.

  2. Small proviso by $RANDOMLUSER · · Score: 5, Funny

    That was spherical cows of uniform density - at STP.

    --
    No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
  3. Correlation is not Causation by nameendingwith · · Score: 5, Funny

    Perhaps it is north because the cows are pointing in that direction...

    1. Re:Correlation is not Causation by tourvil · · Score: 5, Funny

      So now we've got true north, magnetic north, and bovine north?

  4. Re:Time-averaged sunlight by Kingrames · · Score: 5, Funny

    Perhaps they are showing reverence to the almighty invisible polar cow.

    I hear he's where 2% milk comes from.

    --
    If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
  5. I propose a new Game Show by spun · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I shall call it, "Are You Smarter Than a Scientist?" Just pick any old science type story, read a poorly written summary of it, then 'prove' the scientists in question are idiots who didn't even consider the Most Obvious Thing. All Slashbots are welcome to compete.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    1. Re:I propose a new Game Show by halcyon1234 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Oh, I'll play!

      My theory is that Google Earth does take good pictures of cows. The resolution isn't good in rural areas where cows normally reside, and it isn't economically feasible to take high-res photos of every single farm. So what they did instead was invested a bunch of money taking one really, really accurate cow picture. Then they did a global search and replace, replacing all the fuzzy cows with their one HD Cow. That cow happened to be facing north-- and thus, all cows seem to be facing north

      For the lightning round, I'll suggest they only looked at one herd of cows, and since cows are herd animals, they were all pointing the same direction.

      --
      UTF-8: There and Back Again
    2. Re:I propose a new Game Show by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're right. People should never think critically and try to find other, simpler explanations for a supposed phenomenon, not as long as it comes from a scientist, of course.

      Critical thinking is good, of course, but what usually happens here is that people think for about ten seconds, come up with something obvious, and just assume that the researchers who've been working on for months and sometimes years somehow never thought of it. Like this guy, for one example.

  6. Busy schedule by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    when eating or resting

    As distinct from all the other varied activities cows fill their day with.

  7. better article by 800DeadCCs · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7575459.stm
    This one also states that the herd orientation is different around the South Atlantic Anomaly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Atlantic_Anomaly
    Probably due to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetite
    And can't forget us.. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=49775

  8. Re:Thanks, Slashdot! by 77Punker · · Score: 5, Informative

    The picture is actually related to the article, since the cow has a map of Earth on her side, with North at her top!

  9. But a lot of cows have a magnet in their stomach! by Furan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This article does not make any mention of Cow Magnets, used to prevent hardware disease in cows.

    IANAP but I am curious if it is related.

  10. Re:Time-averaged sunlight by CrazedWalrus · · Score: 5, Funny

    "He"? Dude, I'm never drinking 2% milk again. *shudder*

  11. Re:Time-averaged sunlight by tbird20d · · Score: 5, Funny

    The prevailing winds in this area tend to be from the north during the winter and the south during the winter.

    Which must be confusing for the cows...

  12. Now you're getting silly by rumblin'rabbit · · Score: 5, Funny

    You don't want to ever mate northern and southern cows. The offspring are "spinners", which are only useful as rodeo bulls or for producing milk shakes.

    By the way, do rodeo bulls in the northern hemisphere tend to spin in the opposite direction as southern hemisphere bulls? Someone should do a study on this.