Dogs are sensitive to small variations of the Earth's magnetic field

http://www.frontiersinzoology.com/content/10/1/80/abstract

by gmatty • 13 years ago

138 35 13 years ago

frontiersinzoology.com

elwell• 13 years ago

"Frontiers in Scatology"?

codewiz• 13 years ago

Someone is trying to win the Ig Nobel prize.

mturmon• 13 years ago

On 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 during defecation and urination by a hand-held compass.

So it was not as simple as directional preference in sidewalks or roads.

VladRussian2• 13 years ago

have a dog and can say for sure that it is definitely nor random nor "simple preference" (and magnetic alignment falls under "simple" category)

vsbuffalo• 13 years ago

Not the sun, which could be a confounder.

ortusdux• 13 years ago

They don't want the sun in their eyes?

abc_lisper• 13 years ago

This, is the right question.

phy6• 13 years ago

Could be substantiated if dogs in the southern hemisphere preferred to face south.

haversine• 13 years ago

Only when there are "calm magnetic field conditions?"

Not that I know what calm vs stable MF would be. I wonder if it correlates with something else other than sun's position?

chomp• 13 years ago

From the paper:

Typically, the daily declination comprises westward-shifts in the morning and eastward-shifts in the afternoon, while the magnetic field is rather stable at night [21,22]. This calls for necessity to test whether the dog alignment is not actually influenced primarily by time of the day and most probably by position of the sun on the sky. We can, however, exclude this alternative. First, days when the magnetic field parameters change erratically and unpredictably (i.e., magnetic storms) are quite frequent. These changes have been well studied by others and are described in the literature (cf. [21,22] for reviews). Second, the data collection was not biased to either morning or afternoon (Table 8). Third, periods of sampling under conditions of quiet magnetic field were rather evenly distributed in the course of the day. Fourth, and most importantly, alignment during excreting was apparent under conditions of quiet magnet field, irrespective of the time of day or month. Time of day per se was not a reliable predictor of expression of alignment (Figure 2, Tables 3, 9). Fifth, generally, there are on average 1,450 sunshine hours per year at maximum in the Czech Republic and in Germany, on localities where measurements were done. Even if we would assume that these sunshine hours were evenly distributed over the daylight period and the year (as our observations were), there would only be a probability of 33 % that the observation was made when the sun was visible. Hence, with high probability (67 %) most walks during the daylight period were made when it was cloudy.

sciguy77• 13 years ago

I was just about to buy a hall effect sensor, but now I just need a dog! That's for saving me $20 OP.

andrewflnr• 13 years ago

Unless you already have a dog, I don't think that will be a net cost savings.

jboydyhacker• 13 years ago

no shit?

ctdonath• 13 years ago

Nope. Dogs definitely get their shit straight.

droopybuns2• 13 years ago

My bullshit detector is off the charts.

jenius• 13 years ago

you mean your dogshit detector?

pickleport• 13 years ago

Why?

droopybuns2• 13 years ago

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.

ars2• 13 years ago

Apparently Foxes are also sensitive to the magnetic field: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2SoGHFM18I

icegreentea• 13 years ago

Seems so awesome! Here's an article describing the research and proposed mechanism: http://phys.org/news/2011-01-predation-foxes-aided-earth-mag...

ars2• 13 years ago

Thanks for that! The last paragraph makes it seem like every animal except humans can sense the magnetic field. I'm slightly jealous.

cdeonier• 13 years ago

I remember seeing a show remarking on similar sensitivity being observed in foxes when hunting mice in the snow. Apparently, the fox is much more accurate when diving when facing north.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2SoGHFM18I&feature=youtu.be&...

tlb• 13 years ago

The 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 such small changes.

a_bonobo• 13 years ago

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

sp332• 13 years ago

They've excluded it by showing that dogs line up with local magnetic fields even when the sun is in various positions.

zoba• 13 years ago

Something similar happens with cows and deer as well: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/08/google-earth-re/

confluence• 13 years ago

Should be easy enough to falsify. Overpower the Earth's field with magnets and change the N-S orientation. See if they still shit along the new axis.

spurgu• 13 years ago

This might explain why the Australian Aboriginals didn't use left/right for directions[0], but instead used cardinal directions.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relative_direction#Cultures_no...

Aloha• 13 years ago

It explains those stories that make the news now and again of dogs traveling thousands of miles home.

Dogs are sensitive to small variations of the Earth's magnetic field

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