Cow compasses

Next time you get lost while out hiking, look for the nearest cow. Odds are, she'll be facing north, according to a German study reported in this week's Economist magazine.

After studying scads of satellite images from Google Earth, Sabine Begall of the University of Duisburg-Essen reports that herds of cows tend to face north (or maybe south?). This is true, statistically, even controlling for wind direction and warmth from the sun. She hypothesizes that cows, like some smaller animals, may have magnetic receptors in their brain that affect behavior in some unknown way. Interestingly enough, the cows (the article consistently refers to "cows" -- I'm not sure whether this is a sex-related feature) align themselves to the magnetic north pole, not the true pole.

Obviously, the effect is subtle. Cows don't snap automatically into a north-south configuration while they graze. If one cow wants to head for water, the magnetic north pole doesn't drag her back. But, as I read the article, in the absence of any strong external influence or internal desire on the part of the cow to do otherwise (assuming cows have internal desires!), they will more likely than not line up north-south.

Don't depend on the alignment of just one lonely cow to get you safely back home to Dubuque. She may just be staring at that cute young bull on the other side of the fence. But if you see an entire herd lined up, facing the same direction (and not watching an outdoor movie) with their usual expressions of bovine stupidity, you may want to consider them as a compass needle made up of so much prime rib.

For best results, I guess, you'd grab one cow, tie her onto a cork platform, and float her on a motionless pond. After an hour or so, she should eventually swing around to be pointing north.

If you find all this too complicated, the price of GPS units does continue to go down.