Can we please get rid of GPS?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/27/science/study-sheds-light-on-how-...
Some excerpts:
"Birds are famously good navigators. Some migrate thousands of miles, flying day and night, even when the stars are obscured. And for decades, scientists have known that one navigational skill they employ is an ability to detect variations in the earth’s magnetic field. How this magnetic sense works, however, has been frustratingly difficult to figure out."
"Navigating by magnetism includes several steps. Birds have to have a way to detect a magnetic field, and some part of the brain has to register that information; it seems likely that another part of the brain then compares the incoming information to a stored map."
“It’s a stunning piece of work,” David Keays of the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna wrote in an e-mail. “Wu and Dickman have found cells in the pigeon brain that are tuned to specific directions of the magnetic field.”
As Dr. Lohmann said, the discovery “will no doubt inspire much additional work in the future.”
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Developer Comment by John Arne Birkeland on April 27, 2012 at 8:15am -
Sure thing, just need to add some minor new features to APM like:
- A visual recognition and obstacle avoidance system
- Internal MAP storage with global information about magnetic fields
- Self learning BIRD AI with visual and sensor fusion, dead reckoning and map navigation
We have plenty of resources available, so if we hurry a bit I think we can have it ready by monday...
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Yes, I am kidding.. :)
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Moderator Comment by Ruwan on April 27, 2012 at 8:32am -
:-), yes, In the subject line I was kidding too.
It always puzzles me how these animals (birds and even sea turtles) use magnetic fields to navigate. Magnetic field provide the inclination, it roughly gives the latitude. I wonder how they figure out the longitude.
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Moderator Comment by Alex on April 27, 2012 at 9:15am -
Also not to mention birds have perfect camera gimbals ;-)
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Moderator Comment by Ruwan on April 27, 2012 at 9:47am -
lol how about this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6M-h5g3PwI
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Developer Comment by John Arne Birkeland on April 27, 2012 at 11:51am -
I wonder if the bird head stabilization is mostly visual or inner ear based?
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Comment by PACEFE on April 27, 2012 at 2:26pm -
@John,
follow Ruwan link an take a look at 0:28 !!!!
COOL!
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Comment by Jeffrey Torella on April 28, 2012 at 10:15am -
Read here its not just nurons in there brains... http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/09/070927-magnetic-bir...
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