Prof Kate Jeffery has done some very interesting work on how the hippocampus of rats processes navigational information. Scientists are clear that the hippocampus is critical for navigation but believe that it is only one part of a larger system that has many functions including recognising landmarks, computing distances and directions etc. and forming memories….
Here is a link to Monarch Butterflies http://phys.org/tags/monarch+butterflies/ Editor’s remark I have difficulty understanding these results which suggest that Cryptrochromes are involved which I am fairly clear is impossible as there is not enough time for the quantum coherence to take place. Inclination compasses are very inaccurate as there can be huge changes locally due to…
There has been a recent article in the New Scientist 9 August 2014 entitled: “Songbirds really do fly south for the winter” Scientists had postulated that intercontinental migratory songbirds flew north for the summer to breed in order to escape overcrowding and intense competition in the tropics. Most of us had always though that the…
In previous years, Chris has been one of the first tagged Cuckoos to cross the Sahara desert but this year he seems to be on a much more relaxed schedule. His previous arrival dates south, of the Sahara desert, were mid July but right now he’s not even in Africa – he’s still in Italy!…
The story is about a three years old girl lost in Siberia, she was with the family dog and a few days later the dog showed up at the home and they thought that the little girl would die because of the cold. But the dog guided the family to the girl that was rescued…
Intro I have put together this article to spell out some of the thinking that I have come across recently. A lot is highly contentious (such as Torsion waves) but as we struggle to understand how animals (and humans) navigate effortlessly, ideas which seemed so strong suddenly seem to be beset by impossible conditions. We…
This is an English term for sheep that learn to live in a particular location who do not stray from their “land”. For us this is another piece of the jigsaw of how animals operate in the wild and know where “home” is. DEFRA ( Britain’s government Agency for Rural Affairs) asked ADAS to do…