No Way. Cows Automatically Point North? I Call Bullsh …

John Paczkowski — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 22:19:04 +0000

Holy cow. … Cattle grazing or at rest tend to align their bodies in a north-south direction–just like a compass needle. This according to European researchers who scrutinized Google Earth (GOOG) photographs of 8,510 cattle in 308 herds around the world. Plotted onto a compass, the animals’ positions were generally within five degrees of magnetic north or south. “The magnetic field is the only common and most likely factor responsible for the observed alignment,” the researchers wrote in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week. “Our analysis … clearly provides the crucial proof in favor of the Earth’s magnetic field being the responsive cue.”

An interesting observation, especially since cows’ … animal magnetism has been chalked up to wind and the angle of the sun for hundreds of years.

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