Pigeons' selection skills linked to special 'gps neurons' Pigeons' menu skills linked to special 'gps neurons' Researchers have long known that the birds navigate using the earth magnetic field.Brian dickman said. One of the gorgeous aspects of what we have identified, because it shows how single cognitive abilities can record multiple properties or complex qualities in a simple way, he informed bbc news. Recommended to their study, prof.Dickman and his associate le-Qing wu set up an experiment in which pigeons were held in a dark room and used a 3d coil system to cancel out the entire world natural geomagnetic field and generate a tunable, artificial magnetic field around the room. When they adjusted the elevation angles and magnitude of their artificial magnetic Pandora Bracelets field, they simultaneously recorded the activity of the 53 neurons in the pigeons brain which had already being best known as candidates for such sensors. Well, they measured the electrical signals from each one as the field was changed and found that every neuron had its own trademark response to the magnetic field, each giving a kind of 3-D compass reading symptomatic familiar north-South suggestions as well as pointing directly upward or downward. To have, this may help the bird determine not only its heading just as a compass does, but would also reveal its estimate position, the study said. Each cell also showed a level of level of responsiveness to field strength, with the maximum sensitivity corresponding to the effectiveness of the earth natural field, they included in. And as the compass, the neurons had opposite responses to several field the magnetic north and south of a field, that surprised they most of all. Several hypotheses hold that birds magnetic navigation arises in cells that include tiny chunks of metal in their noses or beaks, or it could be in an inner ear organ. Around the, the most widely held among them was thrown into question when scientists found that purported compass cells in pigeon beaks were in fact a type of white blood cell. Another theory shows that a magnetic sense may come about in receptors in birds eyes.When come across light, the idea says, molecules called cryptochromes undergo a fleeting change in their atomic makeup whose length take into consideration their alignment with a field. The new research throws this latter choice also into question, as it works equally well with a north-Or towards the southern states-Aimed field. Leaning toward a third receptor in the inside the ear, and we doing experiments to try to evaluate if it is in fact a receptor or not, wanted to say prof.Dickman. It now believed that countless mechanism may be at work in bird navigation in their eyes, beaks or head and prof.Dickman said kiwister blog he is awaiting getting to the bottom of it.

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