Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by mrpg on Sunday September 02 2018, @01:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the so-cool dept.

ScienceAlert:

The mystery behind how birds navigate might finally be solved: it's not the iron in their beaks providing a magnetic compass, but a protein in their eyes that lets them "see" Earth's magnetic fields.

These findings come courtesy of two papers - one studying robins, the other zebra finches.

The fancy eye protein is called Cry4, and it's part of a class of proteins called cryptochromes - photoreceptors sensitive to blue light, found in both plants and animals. These proteins play a role in regulating circadian rhythms.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 02 2018, @11:31PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 02 2018, @11:31PM (#729692)

    The problem is that it's a euphemism treadmill.

    Changing the name of the thing does nothing to change the stigma attached to the thing.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +5  
       Insightful=2, Informative=1, Touché=2, Total=5
    Extra 'Insightful' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by pTamok on Monday September 03 2018, @07:07AM (2 children)

    by pTamok (3042) on Monday September 03 2018, @07:07AM (#729774)

    Well, to a certain extent, that is one of the ways that language evolves. It used to be that imbecile, idiot, moron, feeble-minded were all terms used by the medical community [wikipedia.org].

    It is an interesting exercise (for small values of interesting) to try and work out a noun for 'toilet' that isn't a euphemism. The best I could find was the Australian word dunny [wiktionary.org]