It is a tragic fact that it is never time to cover all interesting scientific stories every month. In the past, we have characterized the round -up at the end of the year Stories of cool science We (almost) lost. This year, we are experimenting with a monthly collection. The list of February includes dancing turtle, the secret of the boiled eggs, the latest development in understanding Herculenium scrolling, the discovery of the Egyptian Pharaoh’s grave, and more.
Dancing marine turtle
There is a growing evidence that some species of migratory animals (turtles, birds, some species of fish) are able to exploit the earth’s magnetic field for navigation, as a compass to determine the direction and use them as a “map” as a compasser. A paper The nature published in the journal provides evidence of a potential procedure for this extraordinary ability, at least in the Liger Head Turtles, which performs a passionate “dance” while following a magnetic field in a tasty breakfast.
The marine turtles have migrated to the oceans at 8,000 miles, and it has the tendency to return to the feeding and nesting places. The authors believe that they achieve the magnetic signature of these areas through their ability to remember and store them in a mental map. To examine the assumption, the scientists placed the minor sea turtles in two large tanks of water, which was developed with large coils to prepare magnetic signatures at specific locations inside the tanks. A tank includes a place that had food. The other had a similar place without food.
They found that in the first tank, the marine turtles showed specific “dancing” tricks when they arrived in the area associated with food: their bodies bent, dog padding, rotate in place, or raise their heads near or above the water surface. When he conducted another experience using various radio frequencies, he found that the change had interfered with the turtle’s internal compass, and could not make himself during the swimming. The authors concluded that it is compulsory evidence that marine turtles can distinguish between magnetic fields, potentially depending on complex chemical reactions, namely “magnetic correction”. However, the feeling of the map potentially depends on a different mechanism.