{"id":3040,"date":"2012-05-01T00:34:16","date_gmt":"2012-04-30T14:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/?p=3040"},"modified":"2012-05-01T00:34:17","modified_gmt":"2012-04-30T14:34:17","slug":"gps-of-pigeons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/2012\/05\/gps-of-pigeons-3040.html","title":{"rendered":"Magnetic Field &#038; the GPS of Pigeons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-3041\" href=\"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/2012\/05\/gps-of-pigeons-3040.html\/pooping_pigeon\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3041\" title=\"pooping_pigeon\" src=\"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/pooping_pigeon.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"389\" height=\"306\" srcset=\"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/pooping_pigeon.jpg 389w, http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/pooping_pigeon-300x235.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 389px) 100vw, 389px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Certain neurons in pigeon brains encode the direction and intensity of Earth\u2019s magnetic field, providing the common birds with an internal global positioning system, according to a new study.<\/p>\n<p>The findings in the study, published in the latest\u00a0<em>Science Express,<\/em>\u00a0likely apply to other birds as well.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have found cells in the (pigeon) brain that signal the direction, intensity and polarity of an applied magnetic field,\u201d co-author David Dickman, a Baylor College of Medicine neuroscientist, <a href=\"http:\/\/news.discovery.com\/animals\/pigeons-gps-120426.html\">told Discovery News<\/a>. \u201cThese three qualities can be used by the brain to compute heading information, like a compass, and latitude on the Earth surface (location between the magnetic North and South Poles).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is possible that magnetic intensity could also be used to give the bird longitude (East-West location) through learned associations of differing regional variations along the Earth surface,\u201d he added. \u201cTogether, these cells could form the basis of determining heading direction and position according to a brain representation of a magnetic Earth surface map.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Pigeons don&#8217;t look like geniuses, but they are as <a href=\"http:\/\/news.discovery.com\/animals\/pigeons-math-animals-111222.html\">good at math<\/a> as monkeys, suggesting that perhaps all bird varieties have numerical abilities.<\/p>\n<p>So when scientists tell us a magnetic pole shift will be harmless, they are being too quickly dismissive. Imagine 100 billion birds who, by varying degress, suddenly don&#8217;t know where they are going! I doubt a single scientist has consider what sort of butterfly effect this might have on the rest of the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Certain neurons in pigeon brains encode the direction and intensity of Earth\u2019s magnetic field, providing the common birds with an internal global positioning system, according to a new study.<br \/>\nThe findings in the study, published in the latest\u00a0Science Express,\u00a0likely apply to other birds as well.<br \/>\n\u201cWe have found cells in the (pigeon) brain that signal the direction, intensity and polarity of an applied magnetic field,\u201d co-author David Dickman, a Baylor College of Medicine neuroscientist, told Discovery News. \u201cThese three qualities can be used by the brain to compute heading information, like a compass, and latitude on the Earth surface (location between the magnetic North and South Poles).\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cIt is possible that magnetic intensity could also be used to give the bird longitude (East-West location) through learned associations of differing regional variations along the Earth surface,\u201d he added. \u201cTogether, these cells could form the basis of determining heading direction and position according to a &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-magnetic-pole-shift"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3040"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3047,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3040\/revisions\/3047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/survive2012.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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