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.'

Comments

Re:Mental maps...

[Max Threshold]

"Men, on the other hand, rarely use anything but a map. If I changed a street sign outside my apartment, my male friends probably wouldn't be able to find the place anymore."

Maybe I'm an exception, but I don't think that's true at all. I navigate entirely by landmarks. I don't even know the names of half the streets I travel on regularly. Furthermore, my mental map of the city is framed by our light rail system, major bus lines, and bike throughfares, not by the major roads carrying automobile traffic.

Re:True North???

[JWyner]

The only person to ever mention "true" north is the Slashdot poster. TFA never describes true north, and actually specifically states that they are using magnetic north. I am not entirely sure *why* they went out of their way to add the "true" and make the description *untrue*, but thought it worth giving credit to the actual science writer for understanding the difference...