The Cosmic Dance

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Spring in the Hills II Oil John Hulsey

Whenever we get to feeling that there is nothing really new to be discovered in art or the world, we must keep in mind that the “undiscovered country” often lies in our own backyards. Recently, scientists at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany discovered that cattle and other large animals tend to organize themselves toward the magnetic poles. They made this discovery by spending six months studying hundreds of Google Earth satellite images of cattle and deer on six continents—more than 8000 cows and 3000 deer. They noted that the cattle did not orient toward true north, which they could have done using the position of the sun, and the alignment effect disappeared near high-voltage power lines, which would have overpowered the relatively weak influence of the earth’s magnetic field. No one knows exactly why cattle have this ability, but it may have evolved to help them navigate during migrations, similar t…