Ever wonder why a group of cows align themselves with one another?
- Thread starter Lynne
- Start date
jkembry
Black Belt
Has anyone noticed the unique alignment of
people grazing at fast-food establishments. People always line up in
front of cash registers and beverage machines - could this be related to the
magnetism generated by these machines.
people grazing at fast-food establishments. People always line up in
front of cash registers and beverage machines - could this be related to the
magnetism generated by these machines.
Those are the smart ones. The Lead Cows, if you will. The fanning from the other cows tail not only keeps flies off but cools the larger and overheating brain of His Moogesty. He knows what's on the menu tonight, his older brother Herbert! and he wants Payback! Be Afraid, be very Afraid.-vampfeed-
Lori M
Lori M
:lol:
Ninjamom
2nd Black Belt
If it's raw unpastuerized milk, the oreo cookie will rotate clockwise. If you are using processed, homogenzied, pasteurized milk, the cookie will sink.
I did more research on this and found the Oreo's rotate counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, and clockwise south of teh Equator. Sorry about my pervious error.
I did more research on this and found the Oreo's rotate counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, and clockwise south of teh Equator. Sorry about my pervious error.
Oreos have just been introduced here complete with tv ads telling us how to eat them! Seems you split them. lick the white bits off and dunk the hard bits in milk?
I don't think they'll catch on as we all like to dunk our chocolate digestives in our tea!
CoryKS
Senior Master
Enjoy your tea while you can. Once the cookie cartel is done with you, we shall unleash the Juan Valdez Mafia. Resistance is futile!
I helped a friend of mine work on a dairy farm one summer when I was about 14. The taste of the milk before it was pumped into a truck and sent to be "processed" ruined me for milk from a store ever after. Raw milk is great! The stuff from a store just doesn't taste right.
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Did someone say Apocalypse Cow?
astrobiologist
Brown Belt
Since I'm a biologist, I figured I should probably reply to this...
Magnetoreception is the term given to the sense of magnetism. It is most commonly associated with avian species (birds), and is attributed to the lines of migration many of these animals follow annually. The sense of magnetism appears to be present in many marine animals as well; including many fish and turtles.
Little is currently known about the sense of magnetoreception. Indeed, though many scientists have claimed to have discovered organs in many animals which contain large amounts of magnetite or other iron minerals and which definitely appear to be the source of magnetoreception, neurobiologists have not yet come to understand the biophysical mechanism(s) by which these organs and the rest of the neurological system decode the geomagnetic signal...
It is truly an interesting area of study. We humans do not have this sense. I have actually never before heard of any mammals which have magnetoreceptive abilities. I'm curious where you read or heard about this being discovered in cows (and if it is truly a sense in cows than it is probably so in many of their close relatives like bison, goats, sheep, deer, elk, and whales)...
Magnetoreception is the term given to the sense of magnetism. It is most commonly associated with avian species (birds), and is attributed to the lines of migration many of these animals follow annually. The sense of magnetism appears to be present in many marine animals as well; including many fish and turtles.
Little is currently known about the sense of magnetoreception. Indeed, though many scientists have claimed to have discovered organs in many animals which contain large amounts of magnetite or other iron minerals and which definitely appear to be the source of magnetoreception, neurobiologists have not yet come to understand the biophysical mechanism(s) by which these organs and the rest of the neurological system decode the geomagnetic signal...
It is truly an interesting area of study. We humans do not have this sense. I have actually never before heard of any mammals which have magnetoreceptive abilities. I'm curious where you read or heard about this being discovered in cows (and if it is truly a sense in cows than it is probably so in many of their close relatives like bison, goats, sheep, deer, elk, and whales)...
Ninjamom
2nd Black Belt
I recall having read a paper back in the 1980's about an experiment done regarding individuals' natural 'sense of direction' - 100+ college students were taken into an underground section of building and asked to navigate and/or estimate where they were underground in relation to what was above ground. The experiment was specifically designed to eliminate other clues typically used for 'dead reckoning', like visible landmarks and the position of the sun/shadows. The study found that the male students perfomed better in this task than the female students. The researchers theorized this as correlating to the rates of anemia in the population, and/or the prevalance of Fe+ in the available heme molecules.
I have searched and tried to find the article again, unsuccessfully.
Have you heard of any similar research? Is the heme molecule polar?
astrobiologist
Brown Belt
Good questions Ninjamom,
Each heme molecule carries one iron atom. However, even when an abundance of metalloproteins with iron containing heme come together, they still won't be very strongly effected by the geomagnetic field of the earth; the energetic reactions between the hundreds to tens of thousands of other atoms in each metalloprotein would greatly overpower any slight magnetic pull upon the one iron atom. Also, we mammals do not bear any neurological mechanisms, as far as I know, through which magnetoreception could be possible.
Remember, I did not say that we humans lack a natural sense of direction, just a sense of magnetoreception. Our 'sense of direction' as a lot of us call it, actually relies on several other senses. Like I said before, we have proprioception (our ability to understand where our bodies are relative to everything else around us). We also have our 'big five' (sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch). We can also sense large pressure changes and movement. Taken together, with a little bit of good inductive reasoning, we can "sense our direction".
As to the difference in the male and female human "sense of direction", I know more recent studies have theorized that the reason for males generally being better with their sensing is due in large part to the behavioral evolution of our species. Males generally are stronger and more able to handle themselves. In a more primitive time for our species, men would hunt and gather food while women would bear children and keep to the tribe. A hunter must learn to live from the land and must be able to find their way. Naturally, the best hunters were better at sensing where they were and thus could lead and find more food. These better hunters were more likely to have their choice of mates and may even have mated with several females. The hunters who had poor senses likely had little to no chance of passing on their genes through reproduction. So, after hundreds to thousands of generations, the males of the species had been bred for having a greater sense of direction , whereas the pressure to select for that trait had never been present for the female of the species and thus women were less likely to have a good sense of direction.
Each heme molecule carries one iron atom. However, even when an abundance of metalloproteins with iron containing heme come together, they still won't be very strongly effected by the geomagnetic field of the earth; the energetic reactions between the hundreds to tens of thousands of other atoms in each metalloprotein would greatly overpower any slight magnetic pull upon the one iron atom. Also, we mammals do not bear any neurological mechanisms, as far as I know, through which magnetoreception could be possible.
Remember, I did not say that we humans lack a natural sense of direction, just a sense of magnetoreception. Our 'sense of direction' as a lot of us call it, actually relies on several other senses. Like I said before, we have proprioception (our ability to understand where our bodies are relative to everything else around us). We also have our 'big five' (sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch). We can also sense large pressure changes and movement. Taken together, with a little bit of good inductive reasoning, we can "sense our direction".
As to the difference in the male and female human "sense of direction", I know more recent studies have theorized that the reason for males generally being better with their sensing is due in large part to the behavioral evolution of our species. Males generally are stronger and more able to handle themselves. In a more primitive time for our species, men would hunt and gather food while women would bear children and keep to the tribe. A hunter must learn to live from the land and must be able to find their way. Naturally, the best hunters were better at sensing where they were and thus could lead and find more food. These better hunters were more likely to have their choice of mates and may even have mated with several females. The hunters who had poor senses likely had little to no chance of passing on their genes through reproduction. So, after hundreds to thousands of generations, the males of the species had been bred for having a greater sense of direction , whereas the pressure to select for that trait had never been present for the female of the species and thus women were less likely to have a good sense of direction.
Astro and Ninjamom... ya'll are making my head hurt.
OP
Lynne
Master of Arts
- Thread Starter
- #37
I posted the link in my original post. Here's the usual thing though. The media put the spin on the article as if it were proved science. A few days later, I'm reading another article and it appears to be a hypothesis.
Heh...cows gathering closely and pointing the same direction is probably some sort of herd instinct for protection against predators. Maybe the ones facing a different direction are lookouts.
astrobiologist
Brown Belt
That's pretty much what my girlfriend and I were thinking. As an astrobiologist, I've spent more time studying microorganisms, evolutionary biology, and planetary physics. But my girlfriend, Amanda, is more into wildlife, ecology, and ecosystems. We both were thinking it had much more to do with the herd's behavioral pattterns.
I haven't heard of any research which has shown that magnetoreception may be possible in any mammalian species. But, just because I haven't read it, doesn't mean it may not yet come to be. Wow, check that out... triple negative in one sentence. Do I get a Darwin award or something for that. Sounds like I'm a rapper or something
I haven't heard of any research which has shown that magnetoreception may be possible in any mammalian species. But, just because I haven't read it, doesn't mean it may not yet come to be. Wow, check that out... triple negative in one sentence. Do I get a Darwin award or something for that. Sounds like I'm a rapper or something
As Letch did above, I just wanted to thank the two of you for a most interesting string of posts above.
Given that it's not "magnetoreception", what other plausible ideas are there for the herds to face North? Herding instinct brings the herd together and the odd ones facing in different directions are either 'rebels without a clue' or look-outs. But what would cause the magnetic pole aligning behaviour?
Given that it's not "magnetoreception", what other plausible ideas are there for the herds to face North? Herding instinct brings the herd together and the odd ones facing in different directions are either 'rebels without a clue' or look-outs. But what would cause the magnetic pole aligning behaviour?
astrobiologist
Brown Belt
Like I said before, just because I haven't heard of any proven mechanisms by which mammals may have magnetoreception doesn't mean it can't be possible. I just read over the article from NPR about the study in question...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93956323
It does seem a little profound that such a large population (a global) study would come back with such significant results. Not just for cows, but for deer as well.
The article mentions bats having magnetoreception. If this is possible, than that may show that it is possible in other mammals. It could be a very primitve sense (after all some microorganisms have magnetotaxis), or it may have just arised separately in the evolution of different types of organisms.
I just sent an emal to Dr. Hynek Burda at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany; he was the lead author of the study that they reported. I've asked him for a little clarification on the issue. I'm not sure if they have proposed a mechanism by which these larger mammalian organisms may be magnetoreceptive or if they have only gotten to the basis of saying that it appears that all of these animals are aligning north or south. If Dr. Burda will be willing to share some information, than I'll gladly relay whatever I can back here. I'm sure he has some previous research to fall back on and may even be able to get me some research articles to read.
It appears that Dr. Burda had been studying the possibility of magentoreception in mammals for some time now. If you're interested, his information can be found here...
http://www.uni-due.de/zoologie/burda/
Anyways, a scientist is trained to say "I was wrong". And so, in this case, I may have been very wrong. I had not heard of magnetorecption in mammals before, but it sounds like Dr. Hynek Burda and his associates may be on to something. I'd like to dig a little deeper here and see where the neurological-sensory connection lies with this issue. I wonder if some mammals possess a magnetoreceptive organ or if there is an organism-wide relay system that somehow then has a mechanism for perceptive transferral.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93956323
It does seem a little profound that such a large population (a global) study would come back with such significant results. Not just for cows, but for deer as well.
The article mentions bats having magnetoreception. If this is possible, than that may show that it is possible in other mammals. It could be a very primitve sense (after all some microorganisms have magnetotaxis), or it may have just arised separately in the evolution of different types of organisms.
I just sent an emal to Dr. Hynek Burda at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany; he was the lead author of the study that they reported. I've asked him for a little clarification on the issue. I'm not sure if they have proposed a mechanism by which these larger mammalian organisms may be magnetoreceptive or if they have only gotten to the basis of saying that it appears that all of these animals are aligning north or south. If Dr. Burda will be willing to share some information, than I'll gladly relay whatever I can back here. I'm sure he has some previous research to fall back on and may even be able to get me some research articles to read.
It appears that Dr. Burda had been studying the possibility of magentoreception in mammals for some time now. If you're interested, his information can be found here...
http://www.uni-due.de/zoologie/burda/
Anyways, a scientist is trained to say "I was wrong". And so, in this case, I may have been very wrong. I had not heard of magnetorecption in mammals before, but it sounds like Dr. Hynek Burda and his associates may be on to something. I'd like to dig a little deeper here and see where the neurological-sensory connection lies with this issue. I wonder if some mammals possess a magnetoreceptive organ or if there is an organism-wide relay system that somehow then has a mechanism for perceptive transferral.
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