Monday, July 15, 2013

The Navigating Wings: Pigeons on Track

Don’t know where to go? Ask a pigeon then and you’re lucky if they could answer you. They just don’t fly because they have wings, they trip to, they look for foods, they migrating or what – they actually fly because they know where to go!

Researchers just found out that this flying traveler has cells in their brain that could interpret the Earth’s magnetic fields allowing them to locate and sense direction. The built-in GPS technology inside its brain works like an advanced compass, as these cells signals the direction, polarity, and intensity of a certain magnetic field also inclination, angle and latitude guiding them home. Believed it, they could record data too!

This capability is known as magnetoreception where in the senses are so sensitive with the presence of magnetic field and changes of it; including eyes, ears and nose. Certain receptors are located in the primary senses transmit information as electrical signals.  

Woah!  What a great moment to fly with them. And so the GPS technology that we have today is only a model of what Pigeons possessed. No doubt that they are the early messengers of the ancient days.


                                                                (c) Charlie Weingroff

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