[Pleasures]

Cows automatically point to the north

Cows automatically point to the north because they have their own in-built compasses aligning them with the Earth's magnetic field, scientists have discovered.

The researchers studied cows visible on Google Earth Photo: GETTY

Researchers discovered that cattle have a good sense of direction and tend to point in a northerly direction.

It has long been observed that cows appear to have a talent for weather forecasting and are able to predict when rain is on the way, but until now their navigational abilities have been largely ignored.

Their innate ability to find north is believed to be a relic from the days when their wild ancestors needed an accurate sense of direction to migrate across the plains of Africa, Asia and Europe.

Dr Sabine Begall and colleagues from the University of Duisburg-Essen looked at thousands of images of cattle on Google Earth in Britain, Ireland, India and the USA. They also studied 3,000 deer in the Czech Republic. The deer tended to face north when resting or grazing.

Although, in many cases, the images were not clear enough to determine which way the cattle were facing they were aligned on a north/south axis.

The scientists concluded that they were behaving in the same way as the deer.

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.

"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 published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

It is already known that many species use the Earth's magnetic field to navigate across the planet. Examples include migratory turtles, salmon, termites and birds.

Animals are thought to use their own internal magnates made of crystals of magnetite. Homing pigeons have a small amount of the substance on their beaks, which gives them their uncannily accurate powers of navigation.

[Sensei-kun]

then you better not stand in the south near a cow or you'll get a free cow pie xD
but damn, people must be really bored if they research this...

[KLoWn]

How the hell did you get the picture like that? It's halfway below your sig lol.

[xibo]

Quote: Originally Posted by KLoWn

How the hell did you get the picture like that? It's halfway below your sig lol.

she gets it by inputting invalid html.

cows don t look northwards over here... the earth's magnetic attrection is smaller then that one of any cables that go from town to town even hundred meters away from them.

also do cows in larger groups usually look in different directions while the group is not moving

Quote:

The researchers studied cows visible on Google Earth Photo

no serious research will ever be made with data from a censored medium ( google and offs ), and on top of that does google earth not rasterize the map to an extent where you could determine a cow's orientation without geometry detection that requires movement which google earth also doesn t offer.

also has Sabine Begall and the others from the institute of zoology been working with insects and rodents only in the last decade according to the university of duisburg homepage.

i think you ( =pleasures ) have taken "reports" from boulevard press too serious lately

EDIT:

an image where cows are facing into different directions

[flyingwind]

Now that wasn't really useful research

[riddlingminion]

Somebody probably wanted to attempt to sound sophisticated so they did "Cutting edge research". . . but all of the good topics were taken.