« PREVIOUS ENTRY
Michael Dinges’ awesomely engraved laptops and retro-brass navigational instruments
NEXT ENTRY »
African drummer helps develop whale-avoidance system
I’m coming a bit late to this one, but apparently a new study has unveiled a curious new fact about cows: They align themselves with Earth’s magnetic field.
In a the paper “Magnetic alignment in grazing and resting cattle and deer” — published in an August issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — a team of German zoologists used Google Earth to examine images of 8,510 cattle and 2,974 deer in hundreds of locations across the Czech Republic. The result? Whether standing and grazing or resting, the cows and deer tended to align themselves with magnetic north or south. We’ve known for years than smaller mammals like birds, turtles and fish can sense the Earth’s magnetic fields, but nobody thought really big mammals could do so.
The funny part is that the scientists now wonder whether this ought to be taken into considering in the architecture of barns. As Sabine Bengall, one of the zoologists, told National Geographic News:
Begall and her co-authors also note it’s unclear why cows and deer would align themselves with Earth’s magnetism. But it could have management implications, she suggests.
“If we assume that our findings are real, we could ask what consequences does [barn] housing in east-west orientation have,” she said.
“Does it influence the animals’ physiology, as in milk production?”
Feng Shui for cows. Beyond awesome.
The other delightful part of this story is how the scientists conducted their research: Via Google Earth. They realized that it would be “difficult, or maybe impossible, to do these studies in the lab”. But Google Earth allowed them to quickly collect massive amounts of data. Indeed, that’s the remarkable thing here. Anyone — you or I — could have done this study, using data that Google has already collected.
UPDATE: Thanks to Ian York and Lisa Mandle for sending me a copy of the paper! I’d wanted to see if it included any of the Google Earth images so I could excerpt them, but sadly it didn’t. That current picture I’m running above is the cow-herd shot that accompanies the story in National Geographic.
I'm Clive Thompson, a writer on science, technology, and culture. This blog collects bits of offbeat research I'm running into, and musings thereon.
Currently, I'm a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a columnist for Wired magazine. I also write for Fast Company and Wired magazine's web site, among other places. Email or AOL IM me (pomeranian99) to say hi or send in something strange!
New technique renders objects at sea “invisible” to waves of water
Poll: Young people who use landlines are more conservative than those who use mobile phones
At Amherst college, 1% of first-year students have landlines, 99% have Facebook accounts
North Dakota the most outgoing state, according to study of “the geography of personality”
» visit the Collision Detection archives
September 26, 2008 » 01:57 PM
From an interview with ethnobotanist and anthropologist Wade Davis:
One of the cultures you celebrate in Light at the Edge of the World is the Inuit. What do you most admire about them?
Davis: The Inuit didn’t fear the cold; they took advantage of it. During the 1950s the Canadian government forced the Inuit into settlements. A family from Arctic Bay told me this fantastic story of their grandfather who refused to go. The family, fearful for his life, took away all of his tools and all of his implements, thinking that would force him into the settlement. But instead, he just slipped out of an igloo on a cold Arctic night, pulled down his caribou and sealskin trousers, and defecated into his hand. As the feces began to freeze, he shaped it into the form of an implement. And when the blade started to take shape, he put a spray of saliva along the leading edge to sharpen it. That’s when what they call the “shit knife” took form. He used it to butcher a dog. Skinned the dog with it. Improvised a sled with the dog’s rib cage, and then, using the skin, he harnessed up an adjacent living dog. He put the shit knife in his belt and disappeared into the night.
September 25, 2008 » 11:21 AM
“Video from a camp north of Toronto in December 2005 shows a car spinning around in a nearby, snow-covered parking lot. Prosecutors characterized that as special driver training but the defense, and many outsiders, said it was nothing more than “cutting doughnuts,” a favorite winter pastime of young Canadian motorists.” - A key piece of evidence submitted in the trial of a gang of alleged young Canadian terrorists.
September 24, 2008 » 11:21 PM
“Life imitates art imitating life: just thought a gnat crawling across my monitor was part of a Flash-based ad. I clicked it.” - A Tweet from Bill Braine.
September 24, 2008 » 02:37 PM
“Funniest FB friend request ever: “Twitter friend hoping to get to second base (Facebook!) ;-).”” - A recent Tweet by Pistachio
September 24, 2008 » 12:28 PM
Chinese powdered-milk crisis creates a new market: The return of the wet nurse
» see all of my photos on Flickr
ECHO
Erik Weissengruber
Vespaboy
Terri Senft
Tom Igoe
El Rey Del Art
Morgan Noel
Maura Johnston
Cori Eckert
Heather Gold
Andrew Hearst
Chris Allbritton
Bret Dawson
Michele Tepper
Sharyn November
Gail Jaitin
Barnaby Marshall
Frankly, I'd Rather Not
The Shifted Librarian
Ryan Bigge
Nick Denton
Howard Sherman's Nuggets
Serial Deviant
Ellen McDermott
Jeff Liu
Marc Kelsey
Chris Shieh
Iron Monkey
Diversions
Rob Toole
Donut Rock City
Ross Judson
Idle Words
J-Walk Blog
The Antic Muse
Tribblescape
Little Things
Jeff Heer
Abstract Dynamics
Snark Market
Plastic Bag
Sensory Impact
Incoming Signals
MemeFirst
MemoryCard
Majikthise
Ludonauts
Boing Boing
Slashdot
Atrios
Smart Mobs
Plastic
Ludology.org
The Feature
Gizmodo
game girl
Mindjack
Techdirt Wireless News
Corante Gaming blog
Corante Social Software blog
ECHO
SciTech Daily
Arts and Letters Daily
Textually.org
BlogPulse
Robots.net
Alan Reiter's Wireless Data Weblog
Brad DeLong
Viral Marketing Blog
Gameblogs
Slashdot Games
