Cattle, Deer Graze Along Earth's Magnetic Field

Anne Minard
for National Geographic News
August 25, 2008
-----------------------------

Cattle and deer all over the world tend to align themselves with Earth's magnetic field, according to new research.
Both types of animals appear to graze in a north-south direction that aligns with magnetic north, not geographic north, according to European researchers who scrutinized thousands of Google Earth images.

Birds, turtles, and fish are known to use magnetic guidance in migration. And among small mammals, a handful of rodent and one bat species have been shown to possess a magnetic compass.

Sabine Begall, a zoologist at the University of Duisburg in Essen, Germany, and her colleagues propose that large mammals may also sense Earth's magnetic field.

But why the nonmigrating animals would align themselves according to Earth's magnetism is still a mystery, the authors say....>

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/08/080825-magnetic-cows.html

GOD made such a glorious world-- i hope we can save it!!!!!!!

orients an organism, so it can make that decision? Or am I over-simplifying it?

I guess gravity tells one, relative to one's immediate surroundings, how you're positioned, but is there something older than our proprioception of gravity, something more base?

My guess would be that this is not vestigial, that it would make for more efficient grazing to have some definite orientation rather than inefficiently circling back over ground that's already picked over.

I'm not sure why this is presented as a huge mystery; while there may not be enough information yet to support any one hypothesis as to why animals would do this, it shouldn't be hard to come up with testable ideas...

Depth (gravity) + Breadth (magnetism)

for the same reason I mow my lawn in aligned rows: I don't want to go over the same patch more than once, if I can help it -- and I don't want to MISS a patch.

Grazing herds that use the Earth's magnetic fields to orient their grazing will (over time) be more efficient than random grazers regardless how this mechanism was developed/implemented.

Just my opinion...

http://mb-soft.com/public/brain.html

Learning From Sleeping Dolphins!
Within the past several decades, scientific investigators have discovered that our brains create consistent patterns of electrical oscillation. Medical electroencephalographs (EEGs) showed those patterns from their very early use, but it took a while before anyone realized that there are several general "types" of these brain waves.
Depending on the dominant frequency, we now classify these brain waves into Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Theta waves, or rhythms. Alpha waves (8-12 cycles per second) seem to occur most often during relaxed meditation. Delta waves (1-3 cycles per second) are most prominent during deep sleep. Theta waves (4-7 cycles per second) seem to be associated with mood. Beta waves (13-22 cycles per second) seem to be associated with the frontal area of the brain, where complex mental processes are handled.

There are many interesting subjects associated with these various waves, but we will concentrate on one. It is thought that our brains are capable of creating only one dominant variety of these waves at any one time. Associated with this, simple monitors and feedback systems were developed which became fairly popular with the public. In the 1970s, many inexpensive "Alpha wave monitors" were sold. Such devices use medical-style skin sensors (GSR) placed next to specific areas of the forehead or skull to sense brain activity and they included simple filters to identify the dominant frequency in the brain waves being produced. Actually, even better results could be had if people were willing to shave small areas of their hair off, as is done for medical EEGs, but most people would not put up with that! Interestingly enough, when a person was thus aware of his/her own production of Alpha waves, that person could usually quickly learn to consistently produce them, even though no one knows exactly how that is accomplished.

These many products were sold primarily to people who were looking for a method of attaining a meditative state. Since such a state was when Alpha waves were dominant, an Alpha-wave feedback monitor often assisted in achieving this end.

As mentioned above, it has always been assumed that our brains are capable of creating one dominant type of these waves at any one time. However a person achieved the production of Alpha waves as a result of using such a monitor, he/she apparently simultaneously reduced the production of Beta waves of analytical thought.

The human brain has bilateralism, that is, it is composed of two cerebral hemispheres, the left and the right. Each hemisphere is capable of storing and processing information on its own, independent of the other hemisphere. There is a separate portion of the brain that interconnects the two, called the corpus callosum. In certain severely epileptic patients, a surgical procedure that cuts the corpus callosum is done. Effectively, this operation entirely separates the functioning of the two nearly fully functional half-brains. The people are then generally said to have a "split-brain". Apparently, that operation stops some "feedback loops" from occurring and causing the epileptic seizures. The left hemisphere generally normally includes verbal abilities, so such patients could describe many things and a good deal is known about that half. The right hemisphere does not generally include verbal abilities, so it has been much more difficult for researchers to fully learn about that half.

An intriguing result of such a surgery is that the patient then has independent consciousness in the two hemispheres. One might be active while the other unconscious.

Further research has shown that, in healthy humans, the fibers of the corpus callosum do not even mature until about one year after a child is born, and the process continues until around ten years of age. A child therefore might not develop an integrated both-hemisphere consciousness until several years of age.

Somehow, there must be some advantage of having each half start the learning process independently.


Dolphins
Where do dolphins come into this subject? It turns out that dolphins apparently sleep in a peculiar way. They close one eye for several hours, and then the other for a few hours. The associated brain hemisphere is unconscious in a sleeping mode while the individual eye is closed. The other hemisphere is apparently active, probably to ensure capability of sensing predators. Dolphins have been extremely successful species in an environment where total sleeping would present extreme vulnerability from nearby sharks.
Like a human, a dolphin has a corpus callosum connecting the two hemispheres of its brain. The really useful information here is that a dolphin can apparently control the passage of information through the corpus callosum. When one hemisphere is to sleep, messages from the other, somewhat active hemisphere are apparently somehow not passed to it. However, during waking periods, the corpus callosum apparently operates as it does in humans, with two-way communications between the hemispheres.

There IS a potential alternative understanding, in that the corpus callosum just naturally has little activity in a dolphin's life, and that their brain always acts like two separate brains!


Why Is This Significant?
The fact that a dolphin apparently has this ability might suggest that maybe humans could learn or develop it as well. If it were to be possible for a human to intentionally inhibit the activity of the corpus callosum, it might be possible for a person to rest each hemisphere of the brain independently, as apparently dolphins do. Such a situation could enable a person to be in a waking state (or, technically, half-waking state) on a continuous basis, where traditional sleep may not actually be necessary.
I have grave concerns on whether this is a good idea or not! The physical, mental and emotional implications and consequences of never actually sleeping are entirely unknown. It seems very likely that at least some bad results would occur. In addition, during each of the two (different) semi-waking states, very different capabilities and abilities and possibly even personalities may exist. There may turn out to be no actual benefit for humans from never actually sleeping in a traditional way.

Horses may demonstrate another example of this. Many horses get "spooked" if someone rapidly goes around behind them, disappearing from the sight of one eye and appearing in the vision of the other. A horse's corpus callosum must not be very effective or active (although post-mortem autopsies have shown that it is fully developed), because the two halves of its brain seem to have almost entirely independent existence. This is also related to why riders always mount a horse from the left side, because that eye/hemisphere is familiar with the concept (because nearly all trainers teach the horses to expect that), while the other eye/hemisphere generally panics if a rider attempts to mount from the opposite side.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bird brains
The issue of Science News of Feb. 6, 1999, and the Feb. 4, 1999 issue of NATURE both discuss an assortment of scientific research studies regarding this phenomenon in birds. That research suggests that (many) birds have the capability of turning on and off the halves of their brains! One interesting set of experiments involved groups of mallard ducks sleeping in a row. The endmost ducks seemed to always sleep with the outermost eye open and head held in place, while the inner sleeping ducks tended to have random head positions and both eyes closed. (No EEGs were involved, only observational evidence, but over many years). When a set of 16 ducks were tested in random positions in a four-duck row, the outer ducks exhibited the half-sleeping mode around 32% of the time, while only 12% of the time in the inner spots.
That bird evidence does not (yet) include EEG recording to confirm that half the brain is actually in a sleep mode, but so much evidence has been collected to strongly imply that.

The researchers then indicated that many other animals might have similar ability, of INTENTIONALLY controlling full- or half-brain sleep! This MIGHT suggest that it is something that humans might be able to learn.

This is what Gould called spandrels. Since it had no ill effect on survival when they became domesticated, it remained in the gene pool.

It has been established that, when people travel without roads or other land marks, they do tend to wander around in circles. It would be very interesting to see if those circles match local magnetic patterns.

> It has been established that, when people travel without roads
> or other land marks, they do tend to wander around in circles.

I thought this was due to unconscious reference to the sun (or bright
stars if at night) as the tendency to "lock on" to an apparent landmark
over-rules any logical awareness that the sun (etc.) is changing its
own position.

(The curve of the circle was a function of time relative to the speed
of human motion: flatter curve if faster, smaller circle if slower.)

(Now where the hell did I read that ...?)

Perhaps this magnetic metal serves a purpose in addition to formation of hemoglobin for carrying oxygen.

Life is a mystery.

had no idea what they were talking about.

I feel better now that I am in the loop too. LOL