Birds can travels thousands of miles between their summer and winter homes. Why don’t they get lost? Their secret is a sixth sense: magnetoreception.
Learn more at HowStuffWorks.com:
http://animals.howstuffworks.com/birds/bird-info6.htm
Share on Facebook: http://goo.gl/dU1OtD
Share on Twitter: http://goo.gl/n7wDYj
Subscribe: http://goo.gl/ZYI7Gt
Visit our site: http://www.brainstuffshow.com
I’m Lauren, this is BrainStuff, and I have a topically relevant scenario for your consideration: Let’s say you want a change of scenery. So you set out with the clothes on your back, your innate knowledge of the world, and zip all else. No map. No smartphone. Nada. Would you be able to travel tens of thousands of miles, across oceans and continents? And then get back home a few months later?
Because lots of birds do this every year. It’s called migration. And often these birds go to the exact same summer and winter spots, using nearly the exact same routes, every time.
Ornithologists have speculated that birds might use a number of sights, sounds, smells, and learned social cues to get where they’re going. But young birds making their trip for the first time have been observed migrating successfully with no chaperones. What gives?
Research has revealed that migratory birds have vision-based magnetoreception: They can see magnetic fields. And Earth is lousy with magnetic fields.
Earth’s molten outer core is made up of iron alloys, which are swished around by heat coming up off of the solid inner core - and by the rotation of the Earth. That motion (plus the fact that iron is good at conducting electricity) creates a dynamo: A generator of electric and magnetic fields. Which basically? Makes Earth function like a giant magnet. North is positive, South is negative, and our planet is wrapped in slopes and curves of magnetic fields arcing between them.
And migratory birds can sense those fields! Experiments over the past couple decades have shown that birds prepared to migrate south will align themselves with magnetic south – even if you create an artificial “south” in a lab.
And furthermore: These birds see magnetic fields. Around 2010, researchers fit European robins with clear or frosted goggles, and found that the birds needed clear vision in their right eyes to navigate magnetically. Why not their left eye? No one knows.
Scientists are now studying what biological mechanism might be responsible for this. The popular theory goes that magnetic fields cause a chemical reaction in birds’ eyes that affect their sensitivity to light. So magnetic fields might show up as brighter or darker patterns spread out over everything the bird sees. Like a map on a heads-up display.
SOURCES:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v383/n6596/abs/383158a0.html
http://www.int-ornith-union.org/files/proceedings/durban/Symposium/S17/S17.4.htm
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/magsense/ms.html
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/faqgeom.shtml
http://www.epa.gov/esd/cmb/GeophysicsWebsite/pages/reference/properties/Magnetic_Susceptibility/Geomagnetic_Field.htm
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822%2810%2900779-7
http://www.cell.com/biophysj/abstract/S0006-3495%2809%2900468-8
http://spie.org/x37204.xml?highlight=x2416&ArticleID=x37204
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/magsense/ms.html
http://phys.org/news197872356.html
Tagged under: brainstuff,brain stuff,howstuffworks, stuff works,science,technology,lauren vogelbaum,techstuff,fw thinking,Bird Migration (Literature Subject),bird migration,birds,robins,European Robin (Animal),migration,migrate,migratory birds,south winter, birds migrate, birds migrate, birds south winter,Bird (Animal),geese,magnetoreception, birds migrate lost,animals,nature
Clip makes it super easy to turn any public video into a formative assessment activity in your classroom.
Add multiple choice quizzes, questions and browse hundreds of approved, video lesson ideas for Clip
Make YouTube one of your teaching aids - Works perfectly with lesson micro-teaching plans
1. Students enter a simple code
2. You play the video
3. The students comment
4. You review and reflect
* Whiteboard required for teacher-paced activities
With four apps, each designed around existing classroom activities, Spiral gives you the power to do formative assessment with anything you teach.
Quickfire
Carry out a quickfire formative assessment to see what the whole class is thinking
Discuss
Create interactive presentations to spark creativity in class
Team Up
Student teams can create and share collaborative presentations from linked devices
Clip
Turn any public video into a live chat with questions and quizzes
Tried out the canvas response option on @SpiralEducation & it's so awesome! Add text or drawings AND annotate an image! #R10tech
Using @SpiralEducation in class for math review. Student approved! Thumbs up! Thanks.
Absolutely amazing collaboration from year 10 today. 100% engagement and constant smiles from all #lovetsla #spiral
Students show better Interpersonal Writing skills than Speaking via @SpiralEducation Great #data #langchat folks!
A good tool for supporting active #learning.
The Team Up app is unlike anything I have ever seen. You left NOTHING out! So impressed!