Working with seven awake pigeons, the researchers used a Tesla coil to cancel out the effects of Earth’s magnetic field and induce an artificial one. They put the pigeons in a completely dark room to cancel out any light-polarization effects, which have also been suggested as a mechanism for animals’ magnetic navigation capabilities. They also stabilized the birds’ heads so they couldn’t rely on inner-ear cues to determine their directions. Then Wu and Dickman turned up the magnetic field, adjusting its magnitude, elevation and other variables. They used a gene marker to identify when neurons were activated, focusing on neural areas that were already good candidates for this type of information processing. Ultimately, they pinpointed 53 neurons in the birds’ brain stems that had greatly enhanced activity. What’s more, those cells were most sensitive to the magnetic field ranges that correspond to Earth’s real ones — 20 micro-Tesla (μT) at the magnetic equator to more than 60 μT at the magnetic poles. The poles shift over time, however, so the researchers note that these neurons must be somewhat adaptable, either through evolution or brain plasticity. http://m.popsci.com/technology/arti...ic-field-giving-pigeons-reliable-internal-gps
I remember reading about this many years ago. I don't think this is new research. Some crustaceans also exhibit this behavior. Tom
Here's a link to the abstract of the article: Neural Correlates of a Magnetic Sense Magnetic field strength is measured in Teslas, but these experiments are performed with Helmholtz coils. Using a Tesla coil on a pigeon's brain would produce some very interesting results, at least for the pigeon. (The error is in the Popsci article, and not that of the OP.) Richard
Ah, that makes sense. The past research proved that they had some sort of biological compass, but not how it worked. Cool stuff. Tom
