My bullshit detector is off the charts.
Why?
Dogs are sensitive to small variations of the Earth's magnetic field
21–30 of 38 posts
Re: Dogs are sensitive to small variations of the Earth's magnetic field
#22The research seems credible, and they've convincingly excluded obvious things like that they're actually aligning with the sun. The striking thing is that they only align N-S when the declination of the magnetic field is stable, but when the declination is changing they don't align. The differences in magnetic field direction is only a few degrees, so it's amazing that a dog whose head is flopping around can detect s…
>they've convincingly excluded obvious things like that they're actually aligning with the sun.
I don't know - for my taste, to exclude alignment to the sun they would have had to keep the dogs in a closed environment with an artificial light source. After all, even with clouds present you know where the sun is (and you can still get sunburned etc.)
It also rings my "skeptical" alarm bells when they cite the "original" evidence that cattle aligns along the N-S axis, but they don't cite the paper that fails to replicate the "original" findings in cattle: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00359-011-0628-7
Re: Dogs are sensitive to small variations of the Earth's magnetic field
#23Apparently Foxes are also sensitive to the magnetic field: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2SoGHFM18I
Seems so awesome! Here's an article describing the research and proposed mechanism: http://phys.org/news/2011-01-predation-foxes-aided-earth-mag...
Thanks for that! The last paragraph makes it seem like every animal except humans can sense the magnetic field. I'm slightly jealous.
Re: Dogs are sensitive to small variations of the Earth's magnetic field
#24Re: Dogs are sensitive to small variations of the Earth's magnetic field
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why?
Why is this phenomenon limited to dogs? Why has this never been noticed previously? Also, why have I never observed this behavior with my dogs? And to the comedian who replied as well: dogshit and bullshit are not the same thing.
I don't think they're saying it is limited to dogs. It's just proven in dogs. Dogs behave really oddly when a natural disaster is about to occur, would it be that surprising that they had an unique sense that us humans don't have such as what this study is suggesting?
Re: Dogs are sensitive to small variations of the Earth's magnetic field
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why?
Why is this phenomenon limited to dogs? Why has this never been noticed previously? Also, why have I never observed this behavior with my dogs? And to the comedian who replied as well: dogshit and bullshit are not the same thing.
I wouldn't be so quick to call BS. They state in the abstract that it's not limited to dogs:
Several mammalian species spontaneously align their body axis with respect to the Earth's magnetic field (MF) lines in diverse behavioral contexts.
You can read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoception --- though, this is not without issues:
The largest issue affecting verification of an animal magnetic sense is that despite more than 40 years of work on magnetoception there has yet to be an identification of a sensory receptor.
I remember having read about this effect in homing pigeons, and the Wikipedia article also mentions that:
These results suggest that magnetite located in the beak of pigeons may be responsible for magnetoreception via trigeminal mediation. However, it has not been shown that the magnetite located in the beak of pigeons is capable of responding to a magnetic field with the Earth’s strength. Therefore the receptor responsible for magnetosensitivity in homing pigeons has not been cemented.
Without being an expert, it seems to me to be worthwhile research.
Re: Dogs are sensitive to small variations of the Earth's magnetic field
#27Something similar happens with cows and deer as well: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/08/google-earth-re/
Re: Dogs are sensitive to small variations of the Earth's magnetic field
#28On methods, quoting from the paper: Alignment of the body (along the thoracic spine) in direction towards the head (heading) was measured in freely moving dogs (i.e., not on the leash) in “open field” (on meadows, fields, in the wood etc., i.e., unconstrained, and uninfluenced by linear structures, such as walls and fences) away from the road traffic, high voltage power lines, and conspicuous steel constructions duri…
Not the sun, which could be a confounder.
Re: Dogs are sensitive to small variations of the Earth's magnetic field
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
This, is the right question.
Could be substantiated if dogs in the southern hemisphere preferred to face south.
Well, I'm in that hemisphere. My dog prefers to do it facing away from owner if no reference points, otherwise always likes to go parallell to the nearest path/ building/ fence. I would say virtually never randomly chooses south.
Re: Dogs are sensitive to small variations of the Earth's magnetic field
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is this phenomenon limited to dogs? Why has this never been noticed previously? Also, why have I never observed this behavior with my dogs? And to the comedian who replied as well: dogshit and bullshit are not the same thing.
I don't think they're saying it is limited to dogs. It's just proven in dogs. Dogs behave really oddly when a natural disaster is about to occur, would it be that surprising that they had an unique sense that us humans don't have such as what this study is suggesting?
Maybe I can hire an augur to read my dogs poops then play the stock market with the findings?