Walk This Way Following the herd takes on whole new meaning Talk
about herd mentality. When it comes to doing everything
together, cows have just about everyone beat. From sleeping and
eating to huddling together when it rains, cattle cope through
their day-to-day activities as, well, a herd. But now it seems
they do all of these things facing in the same direction. Images
from Google Earth have confirmed that cattle tend to align their
bodies in the magnetic north-south direction, leading
researchers to believe that they have an internal magnetic
compass to help their sense of direction, just like smaller
bats, birds and salmon do. It has already been understood that
grazing animals orient themselves to minimize heat loss from
wind or to maximize their exposure to sunlight. But new research
shows the Earth?s magnetic field is a common factor that could
be influencing the animals, ruling out wind and sun as reasons
they face the same way. Dr. Sabine Begall from the University of
Duisburg-Essen, Germany, and a