The cow compass: How cows secretly use Earth’s magnetic field while grazing |

A quiet field can look completely ordinary until you notice the pattern. Many cows and deer seem to rest or graze with their bodies lined up roughly north-south. That odd detail first drew serious scientific attention in 2008, when Sabine Begall, Hynek Burda and colleagues reported that cattle and deer across many locations often followed […]

NASA warns of a growing South Atlantic Anomaly weakening Earth’s magnetic shield |

Earth’s magnetic field acts like a protective cocoon, shielding the planet from harmful charged particles racing in from the Sun and deep space. But over the South Atlantic, that shield has developed an unusually weak patch known as the South Atlantic Anomaly. Recent observations show that this anomaly is not only expanding but also shifting, […]