Scientists Discover Cows Point North 558
Dr Sabine Begall and colleagues from the University of Duisburg-Essen have discovered that cows tend to point north. The researchers studied deer in the Czech Republic and looked at thousands of images of cattle on Google Earth. The animals tended to face north when eating or resting. "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. I guess cows will become the must-have item for long-distance hikers now. Having an edible compass would come in handy if you get lost.
You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it possible? Yes. But I wonder how many factors they really looked into before coming to this conclusion. What about how cows perceive things like the locations of houses, barns and roads. Are a lot of farms on north/south roads or are fields on the south side of the farm so the cows are facing towards the barn or house? I don't know, but from reading the article, it doesn't sound like they looked into much other than making conclusions from Google Earth. What about the fact that aeriel photography is done during certain times of the day or during certain seasons. Surely those have an effect on cows. Poor science in my opinion. And the sad thing is that an article like this only causes people to start propogating facts that might be wrong. Not that what direction cows face is a big deal, but its common enough that it only propogates stupidity.
And why use Google Earth? Indiana (I know cows are sacred in India) seems like a prime candidate for studying cows from space. In 2005 Indiana University released a complete set of aerial photos of the whole state that had as high as 6" per pixel resolution. Which is better than Google Earth.
Besides that, how many good research scientists are going to promote their work by posting a link to Slashdot to an article in a newspaper.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:4, Insightful)
They may just like sun on their backs and not in their eyes.
Not everything requires 'scientific' conjecture (which is, I think, your point.)
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
They may just like sun on their backs and not in their eyes.
Next, these researchers will discover a bizarre new breed of Australian cows that like to point south.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
not to mention goats in 4 varieties of leg length, uphill goats, downhill goats, leftfacing goats and rightfacing goats. Legs on the upper slope will be shorter.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, that's more-or-less right. Ever seen a manatee?
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
A well-known scientist once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant cow." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the cow standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's cows all the way down!"
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
I believe your right. It appears that the first was, in fact, a shorten version of the longer post. Both conveyed the same concept and nearly all details could be implied from the original statement.
Furthermore, I believe it should be pointed out that the first post was only a single sentence in length; however, the second post was a full three paragraphs of text.
I just wrote this to point out that your statement was indeed correct and appeared too short so I figured I should expand on it. Perhaps the second poster will understand a three paragraph explanation of your statement.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
You believe his right to do what?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You believe his right to do what?
Mom, there making fun of me... again!
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:4, Funny)
There? Where?!?
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
what was the comment again?
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
Now you're getting silly (Score:5, Funny)
By the way, do rodeo bulls in the northern hemisphere tend to spin in the opposite direction as southern hemisphere bulls? Someone should do a study on this.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:4, Funny)
But it does produce delicious veal that flips itself over automatically when cooking.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but I also just wanted to be the first to call this finding bullshit. ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Insightful)
There was an article in the paper last winter about ranchers having to roam their pastures at night looking for cattle giving birth (They give birth in the middle of winter). The calves would immediately need to be taken to a barn, otherwise they would quickly freeze in the -20 to -30 temperatures we frequently get during winter nights.
Adult cows are very hardy though, and survive just fine in extreme cold, although they do tend to huddle together to block the wind and conserve each others heat.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And the new calves can freeze mainly because (like all mammals) they're born wet, and thanks to the chinooks the ground can also be wet. Once they've dried off and are standing and drinking good, they can go back outside. As you say, cattle are VERY hardy. (Being close cousins of bison, who thrive in the coldest parts of the continent, often calve in late winter, and are outdoors for the duration.)
BTW where 'zactly are you? I grew up in Montana (Great Falls), tho I'm presently in SoCal.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Then they wouldn't constantly be pointing north. Only at the poles do you see a drastic north to south disparity of the sun.
Exactly to the contrary. Outside the polar regions, a cow facing due north, or due south, will never have the sun directly in front of them.
There's no need to invoke magnetism.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think that you can conclude that. It seems really odd to me that if it were just a reaction to the sun, that they'd be facing north, rather than directly away from the sun.
Pointing directly north is going to have the sun never directly in front of the cow, but it's not going to minimize the light either.
Really, without some evidence that cows have an awareness of time, this sort of hypothesis is no better than the one it claims to refute.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
They may just like sun on their backs and not in their eyes.
Not everything requires 'scientific' conjecture (which is, I think, your point.)
Mod parent up to +5.
In the northern hemisphere the sun is to the south.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:4, Insightful)
Or maybe satellites take images at noon when the lighting is best because the sun happens to be at its highest (and in the south)?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:4, Informative)
In America, if an adult cow is grazing, it's almost certainly a dairy cow. Steers are shipped to feedlots early in life to be corn-fed (cows still can't really digest corn well, and it would kill them in about a year and a half, but they're slaughtered first).
And where do beef steers come from, hmmm?? (Score:4, Informative)
Someone says, "In America, if an adult cow is grazing, it's almost certainly a dairy cow."
Not true. The dams of all those steers being shipped to market are ranch cows, which you'll find grazing on the open range. Second, most dairies feed largely silage and baled hay, since milk-producing cows need more protein than range graze provides.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If their eyes allowed for simultaneous focus in two separate directions you'd see a lot more cows with headaches, vomiting up four stomachs worth of cud.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Informative)
.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
RTFA? Are you nuts? This is slashdot. Unlike fark, we do not have to RTFA in order to come up with snarky comments! All one has to do is skim a thread to see all the GNAA and goatse and scat-eating posts to prove that claim.
You underestimate the length to which we slashdotters will go to maintain our reputation of being lazy! Look at me. I have not RTFA yet and I'm procrastinating reading the fine article by making this post.
Again, as further proof that slashdotters are lazy and will not RTFA I will contin
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Thanks for playing our game! Please accept this consolation prize - RTFA: The Home Game! Now you can play RTFA right from the comfort of your own television set!
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Insightful)
How about learned patterns of sunlight corresponding to landmarks? Or did they also try blinding the cows?
Or sealing them inside a large white dome with no discernible edges so that it was all white to infinity?
And did they ask for guns? lots of guns?
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Insightful)
!=
The first one could mean the scientist ruled out the amount of sunlight the area gets on average. (Oslo gets less sun than Palermo)
The second one means they took the pictures at various times in the day.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe the cows know global warming is an imminent danger, and are trying to avert the situation by providing a net thrust on the Earth to push us into a higher orbit.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Interesting)
They may just like sun on their backs and not in their eyes.
As most glider pilots can tell you, cows have their backs against the wind. We use them for wind cues during emergency landings.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
As most glider pilots can tell you, cows have their backs against the wind. We use them for wind cues during emergency landings.
So does that mean you can't use the term "bullseye" for a good landing? I've got a mental image of a glider slaming into a bull.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Insightful)
The alternative to causation is not only reverse causation. Correlation could be due to causation in either direction, but also due to a shared cause or even total coincidence.
For example, the building I live in is lined up north/south. Is this due to the Earth's magnetic field? No, it's because it's built on a north/south road.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
who the hell tagged this story with "correlationisnotcausation"?
Clearly, they were referring to the Google practice of using cows to orient their aerial photographs northward.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cow_magnet [wikipedia.org]
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
Chickens are also fed a smaller version of these, just after birth.
It's called a chick magnet.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:4, Funny)
Interesting that the cow in the picture is clearly pointing west. :=)
Re: (Score:2)
Armchair reviewer, not scientist (Score:4, Insightful)
The linked article is not the actual journal article, so they don't explain what they did or detail their results.
If you look at a summary of a paper you're not an expert in and come up quickly with some potential problems, it's likely that someone who works on this for months if not years is going to have considered that at some point. The fact that it's not in the summary does not mean they didn't look at it and you shouldn't assume they're bad researchers for not making sure this summary (which someone else wrote) had all the technical details.
For example, the external factors like houses and barns, that seems pretty obvious. They would be unearthly stupid to not factor that in. There are ways in which you could factor that in too. If you find the article and they just look at cows removed from all else and find this bias, you're right, that could be from numerous other effects, not the least of which is HUMAN tendancy to north/south.
The conclusion you should get is "poor summary," not poor science. You're the one jumping to unsafe conclusions.
Another issue: how many good scientists promote their work by posting a link to an article? I don't know, are you sure they did or is this "samzenpus" writing this without any input from the researchers?
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
Well, I have this stash of about 400 neodymium magnets, I'm going to have lots of fun burrying them in the local farmers fields in exciting patterns.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
Well, I have this stash of about 400 neodymium magnets, I'm going to have lots of fun burrying them in the local farmers fields in exciting patterns.
Try to get them to spell out "eat mor chiken".
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:4, Funny)
If it is truly a result of magnetic field, then they'd be able to show it by showing a correlation to the magnetic declination
Or they could just wait for the poles to reverse then the cow should all roll over on their backs during the shift. The greatest cow tipping on the planet.
Small proviso (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
are they massless and frictionless?
Time-averaged sunlight (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe the cows base their orientation on sunlight rather than magnetic field. I mean, what about the magnetic field would make cows want to align with it? Nothing I can think of, but facing north might protect their heads from excess sunlight (or help rid pests from the other end).
The researchers say that they ruled out sunlight orientation based on variations in direction, but maybe the cows are smart enough to average out the direction of the sun to find north. Since cows tend to stay in the same place
Re:Time-averaged sunlight (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps they are showing reverence to the almighty invisible polar cow.
I hear he's where 2% milk comes from.
Re:Time-averaged sunlight (Score:5, Funny)
"He"? Dude, I'm never drinking 2% milk again. *shudder*
Re:Time-averaged sunlight (Score:5, Funny)
I also noticed that the cows in a herd all used to point the same direction. It might be north, or it might be south. The prevailing winds in this area tend to be from the north during the winter and the south during the winter. You can ask any rancher, and he will tell you that cows stand with their backs to the wind.
Re:Time-averaged sunlight (Score:5, Funny)
Which must be confusing for the cows...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed, keeping the sun out of their eyes would make it easier for them to spot a predator.
The claim that the scientists could rule out sunlight based on "huge variations" is absurd, given that they are using satellite photographs as their source and thus automatically selecting imagery where the sky is clear. The fact that they rely on Google Earth imagery even more specifically selects images outside the extremes of morning and evening when the sun is low on the horizon.
Re:Time-averaged sunlight (Score:4, Informative)
I found the press release by the university (press release (in German) is here [uni-duisburg-essen.de]) and it contains a bit more information. They also checked areas with known deviations of the magnetic field and found, that the cows seem to react stronger to the magnetic north than the geographic north.
Subject Requires More Study IMO (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Subject Requires More Study IMO
I'm not sure this subject warrants any study at all...
Re:Subject Requires More Study IMO (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure this subject warrants any study at all...
Funny, but you never know, a lot of discovers come from looking into non-obvious places.
Does this take into account the effect of peer (Score:2)
How many cows do I need? (Score:2)
How many cows do I need to get a good sample? Is there any period between herding them, and them settling down to point north? Are we talking 30 seconds? 20 minutes? I'm trying to figure out if I need to take a compass or some cows. I don't have the carry the cows.
Correlation is not Causation (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Correlation is not Causation (Score:5, Funny)
So now we've got true north, magnetic north, and bovine north?
I propose a new Game Show (Score:5, Interesting)
I shall call it, "Are You Smarter Than a Scientist?" Just pick any old science type story, read a poorly written summary of it, then 'prove' the scientists in question are idiots who didn't even consider the Most Obvious Thing. All Slashbots are welcome to compete.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I propose a new Game Show (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, I'll play!
My theory is that Google Earth does take good pictures of cows. The resolution isn't good in rural areas where cows normally reside, and it isn't economically feasible to take high-res photos of every single farm. So what they did instead was invested a bunch of money taking one really, really accurate cow picture. Then they did a global search and replace, replacing all the fuzzy cows with their one HD Cow. That cow happened to be facing north-- and thus, all cows seem to be facing north
For the lightning round, I'll suggest they only looked at one herd of cows, and since cows are herd animals, they were all pointing the same direction.
Re:I propose a new Game Show (Score:5, Insightful)
Critical thinking is good, of course, but what usually happens here is that people think for about ten seconds, come up with something obvious, and just assume that the researchers who've been working on for months and sometimes years somehow never thought of it. Like this guy, [slashdot.org] for one example.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I would tend to agree with you, but for one minor problem. Having worked with a number of research docs and having friends who have had similar experiences...
There are idiots with PhD's.
There are idiots doing research.
Most of the docs I know personally are pretty top notch researchers (although the concept of business isn't a strong suit). But many of them have made mistakes, and one smart person making a mistake in front of 10 idiots can result in some really dumb papers.
They could be on to something, but
Brazilian Beef (Score:2)
Magnetic or geographic? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think that asking all those question could give a better overview; do the cows have magneto-sensitive ions in their brain like pigeons? Or do they only want to avoid the sun in their eyes?
Feng Shui (Score:2, Funny)
Maybe cows in India are into Feng Shui.
Busy schedule (Score:5, Funny)
when eating or resting
As distinct from all the other varied activities cows fill their day with.
Thanks, Slashdot! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm very glad that Slashdot finally added the ability to include informative pictures with their stories. For too long, I've seen news stories about cows and wondered to myself, "What exactly is a cow? What does one look like?" Now, thanks to this excellent feature, I no longer have to suffer the embarrassment of cow ignorance.
Thank you Slashdot!
Re:Thanks, Slashdot! (Score:4, Funny)
Weird, the cow in that picture is clearly pointing east!
Re:Thanks, Slashdot! (Score:5, Informative)
The picture is actually related to the article, since the cow has a map of Earth on her side, with North at her top!
better article (Score:5, Informative)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7575459.stm [bbc.co.uk]
This one also states that the herd orientation is different around the South Atlantic Anomaly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Atlantic_Anomaly [wikipedia.org]
Probably due to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetite [wikipedia.org]
And can't forget us.. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=49775 [nih.gov]
Where does Gary Larson Live? (Score:5, Funny)
TV Satellite dishes point south (Score:5, Funny)
TV Satellite dishes point south - So when I'm lost in the wilderness, that's what I look for.
That may be so... (Score:3, Funny)
But they're a bugger to strap to your wrist while you are out hiking.
But a lot of cows have a magnet in their stomach! (Score:5, Interesting)
This article does not make any mention of Cow Magnets [magnetsource.com], used to prevent hardware disease [wikipedia.org] in cows.
IANAP but I am curious if it is related.
It's a recent phenomenon (Score:4, Funny)
I'm a cow too (Score:4, Interesting)
When I was young my bed always used to faced west (as in: my head pointed west when lying in it). Whenever we went on holiday I always woke up facing west as well. Even if the bed was in a totally different direction. I have no idea about the cause, I just stopped doing it when I got older. I'm pretty sure I don't have a built-in compass now though, so I'm a bit sceptical about cows having them;-)
So, here's an alternative explanation: cows have to keep cool. The hotter the sun is, the less surface they want to expose to it. For a cow, that generally means not to let their sides, which have the most surface, be exposed to the sun. And since there's the most sun at noon, when the sun is either in the south or in the north, depending on the hemisphere the cow lives on, cows tend to either point north or south a bit more than in other directions. Add to that that google maps, on which the research was based, actively selects sunny pictures, thereby boosting this effect, and we'd have an explanation for most cows pointing either north or south. Now add to that that the guys that did the research only selected countries on the northern hemisphere and we have a perfect explanation that does not involve magnets;-)
Ok, I might be entirely wrong, but at least my explanation is just as good as the explanation in the rather-short-on-details-article;-)
ASCII Cows (Score:5, Funny)
Never before has the slashdot junk character filter been so unfortunate.
Moo [baetzler.de].
Not very useful for hikers (Score:3, Funny)
You would have to choose between eating the cow and staying lost or using the cow as a compass and staying hungry...
damned flat earthers again... (Score:3, Funny)
The earth is a sphere, so you can't just look at surface patches and expect a uniform distribution. For example, any cow you drop on the north pole is always going to be on a North/South axis. Since there are more cows at higher latitudes, you get preferential North/South orientation even if cows just stand around randomly.
Long History of Existence (Score:4, Insightful)
Humans have been observing cows for millenia. Don't you think someone would have noticed this by now? Its not like cowherds have a lot of other things on their mind when they are minding the herd.
Journal article (Score:3, Informative)
The journal article is here [pnas.org]. The abstract gives some details:
"We demonstrate by means of simple, noninvasive methods (analysis of satellite images, field observations, and measuring âoedeer bedsâ in snow) that domestic cattle (n = 8,510 in 308 pastures) across the globe, and grazing and resting red and roe deer (n = 2,974 at 241 localities), align their body axes in roughly a northâ"south direction. Direct observations of roe deer revealed that animals orient their heads northward when grazing or resting. Amazingly, this ubiquitous phenomenon does not seem to have been noticed by herdsmen, ranchers, or hunters. Because wind and light conditions could be excluded as a common denominator determining the body axis orientation, magnetic alignment is the most parsimonious explanation. To test the hypothesis that cattle orient their body axes along the field lines of the Earth's magnetic field, we analyzed the body orientation of cattle from localities with high magnetic declination. Here, magnetic north was a better predictor than geographic north. This study reveals the magnetic alignment in large mammals based on statistically sufficient sample sizes. Our findings open horizons for the study of magnetoreception in general and are of potential significance for applied ethology (husbandry, animal welfare). They challenge neuroscientists and biophysics to explain the proximate mechanisms."
Not correct. (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry - these guys should have spoken to some paraglider or hang glider pilots before their study. What they would have been told is that at wind speeds exceeding about 5 knots at ground level, cows and horses put their tails into the wind, and keep their heads downwind.
I have used cow-filled paddocks as excellent wind socks on numerous occasions: if cows are NOT aligned in any particular direction, then I know winds are lighter than 5 knots, and I look for other tell-tales of wind direction (smoke, or dust mainly).
At over 5 knots though, cows are extremely reliable, and I have never suffered a downwind landing after checking the cow-orientation of a nearby field.
Re:Huh (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Agreed. I live in Iowa, and the only time I really notice a uniformity is in the winter when the weather is harsh. Then they tend to stand with their backs to the wind. I would hypothesize that this is to keep the blowing snow out of their eyes.
On a side note: So browsing through Google Earth now qualifies as being a scientist? Cool! Time to update my resume!
Re:Huh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How about a simpler explanation? (Score:5, Funny)
Visions of Wile E. Coyote leap to mind...
Re:How about a simpler explanation? (Score:4, Insightful)
I was thinking this might call for a Mythbusters episode on Discovery Channel involving a huge electromagnetic field set up in different places in the farmer's field?