Breaking News: Cows Point North!

Zooillogix

After reviewing thousands of images of cows on Google Earth, the new gold standard in data collection, scientists have determined that cows generally point north. Lest you think this is some crap news my brother grabbed from the Daily Mail, Dr. Sabine Begall and colleagues from the University of Duisburg-Essen published this discovery in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

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When you Google “Cow Compass” this is what happens.

After factoring out variations like wind, terrain, sun, time of day, time of year, temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, dew point, breed of cow, ethnicity, religion, sexual preference, and specific density, Begall and company determined that the cows must get their innate bearings from the earth’s magnetic field. They theorize this adaptation must have come in handy when cows wild ancestors wandered the earth freely, looking for a good time.

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Which way am I facing now Einstein?

Thanks to Chris Cleveland for sending along.

Comments

#1 dog-geek
August 26, 2008

Ha ha… love the Cow Compass from Google. I was recently doing some research on knocking out genes in chickens, and Google gave me Nell Carter’s Knockout Chicken Recipe. Bless Google’s heart.
#2 greg laden
August 26, 2008

Are these only cows in the Northern Hemisphere? Cattle (this species) evolved and only lived in the S. Hemisphere, so this may not be important. But it would be interesting to see what S. Hemisphere cows do.

And, what do, say, Cape Buffalo, which are trans-equatorial (but maybe more southern?)

And what about ponies? Which way do the ponies point?
#3 cedes
August 26, 2008

please write me i want to get a pig and i want to know how you got them
#4 cedes
August 26, 2008

hey i thought the blogs went to murry (the man with the miniature pigs 4 sale)
#5 milkshake
August 26, 2008

south-hemisphere cows do not count because they are hanging upside down
#6 DMcD
August 26, 2008

They face ‘north’ — which also means — they fart ‘south’.

That helps explain the typical southerners ‘bad attitude’ [ theres something in the air ].

The further south you go , the worse it gets. This could help explain the demise of the Incas and Aztecs — as the Spanish imported cattle , so went the dominance of the natives.
#7 Zelly
August 26, 2008

The mad scientist in me wants to do experiments with cows and magnets.
#8 Gary
August 26, 2008

Maybe this is a new phenomenon. After all, we’ve only had photography for a couple of hundred years. Maybe in the old days they all faced east and got tired of looking into the morning sun.
#9 HP
August 27, 2008

Cow magnets.

I think it would be hilarious if it turns out that cows are facing north to keep the magnets from tickling their insides.

(I used to have a couple of cow magnets when I was kid. They’re fun and educational!)
#10 Pat
August 27, 2008

Whoever writes the captions, thanks for always making me laugh! You made my day today.

Pat
#11 Jim Thomerson
August 27, 2008

Cows sometimes have “hardware disease”, accumulation of pieces of wire, nails, etc in their stomach (not sure which one).
#12 kar?nca ya??
September 8, 2008

This could help explain the demise of the Incas and Aztecs — as the Spanish imported cattle , so went the dominance of the natives.
#13 figurin
September 8, 2008

The further south you go , the worse it gets.
#14 arkadaş
August 6, 2011

süper payşım teşekkürler
#15 Leon Gilkison
July 2, 2012

I similar to this collection!