#175 - magnets are cool

i like magnets. always have. always will, probably. y'know when you're a kid magnets are like the coolest thing ever, anything magnetic you can get your hands on you gotta have right? i was always looking for stronger and stronger magnets. i even made a hoverboard (remember? from "back to the future") with one of those little finger skateboard toys that you can take the wheels off of. i wanted to find one of those "earth magnets," the natural ones that are super strong that they use on mythbusters, but those are actually dangerous so i couldn't get one of those.

anyway, so i read this thing in the paper today that said scientists have found that cows will align themselves to magnetic north-south while grazing, they took aerial shots of cows in pastures and found that they'd all line up on along the north-south magnetic line, leading some to believe that cows could sense the earth's magnetic field. this sounded so cool because i think it's really neat when news of these kinds of extra-sensory senses start to emerge (like how elephants can detect super low-frequency sound through their feet). but, after reading through the article (thanks to my grad school days i now have a habit of dissecting research articles for possible flaws before i really buy into it), it looks like just a mass of speculation on a coincindence in some pictures. i mean, you could make lots of assumptions about this, like maybe they align that way because they detect heat from rivers of lava flowing under them or maybe the metal in their collars pull them towards the south pole or maybe cows just like to stand side by side a lot. anyway, not a super scientific breakthrough, but who knows, maybe with more poking around into it we'd find out more. and that's the MORE exciting part of finding out things like this, not that cows have internal magnets, but that maybe living organisms have more perception than we think, that maybe there are parts of our brains that sense things we just can't name yet. i mean, before anyone knew about the inner ear and the semi-circular canals, how did people think we sensed balance? what if we could find these extra senses? well, then we'd all be superheros right? then that would be super cool.

by the way, y'know what is NOT super cool? losing. UH had plenty of that this weekend. haha, although not horrible loses because 1) they were playing teams that were way out of their league anyway, and 2) because even if they lost it's the beginning of the season and i'm just happy that the sports are back. well, the football was pretty depressing... it was exciting for exactly one quarter, then it was just kinda sick to watch. not that i expected them to win, or even be close at all, but that was just sad. volleyball, on the other hand, had a lot of good in the two losses this weekend. of course penn state was just lights out spectacular, and the wahine stayed with them (until penn state decided to turn it on and win already), then the ucla game was another depressing one, but maybe because i really thought they might pull off that upset. anyway, that was still a real exciting game, especially the end, but still depressing. well, i think it'll be a good season though, for both sports... but for now, back to the US Open... i'm picking serena and federer...