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On-Body Circuits Create New Sense Organ
destinyland writes "In 'My New Sense Organ,' a science writer tests 'a new sense' — the ability to always know true north — by strapping a circuit board to her ankle. It's connected to an electronic compass and an ankle band with eight skin buzzers. The result? 'I had wrong assumptions I didn't know about ... I returned home to Washington DC to find that, far worse than my old haunt San Francisco, my mental map of DC swapped north for west. I started getting more lost than ever as the two spatial concepts of DC did battle in my head.' The device also detects 'the specific places where infrastructure interferes with the earth's magnetic fields.'
I've been to Northern Canada. A compass points to MAGNETIC North. True North is at the North pole, the point on which the earth spins. At true north, the sun never sets, and sometimes never rises for days on end. In summer, it has the longest days in the world. In winter, the longest nights. Magnetic north is not the same place at all ...
Magnetic North has some interesting properties too. Amongst others, the Magnetic south and north poles move around, periodically flip, and do not pass through the center of the earth.