Animal navigation combines several systems at once, which is why removing one rarely stops an animal entirely. Here are seventeen of the tools involved.
1. Reading the Earth's Magnetic Field…
Source: Wikipedia
There is an object in a museum case in London that does something a piece of fourth-century glass has no business doing.
Look at it with the light coming…
Almost nobody looks at a dark night sky and thinks it requires explanation. It is dark because the sun has set, which seems sufficient.
It is not sufficient, and noticing…
Nearly every effect below comes from one of three things: a curved surface that guides sound, a shape that focuses it, or a surface that refuses to reflect it at…
A compass needle points north. Almost everyone knows this and almost nobody knows what it means.
It does not point at the North Pole. The geographic North Pole is a…
There are a small number of biological rules that hold across every vertebrate: a spine, a heart, and haemoglobin to move oxygen around the body.
The last one has exactly…