National Geographic carries a story about a study to check how birds locate north in the absence of visual cues went slightly off-course when researches noted that their birds were completely lost. Someone decided to put a Faraday cage around the cages and the birds got sorted out.
Previous studies found no such problem, but had been conducted out in the countryside. The newer study was being held near the University of Oldenburg, and was more awash in nearby signals.
The presence of AM frequency signals seemed to have no effect, but the higher frequencies caused problems for the birds. The researcher dug no further into exact frequencies, amplitudes, or patterns as it wasn't the initial point of the research.
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Radio Frequencies Interfere with Bird Orientation
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(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 10 2014, @08:36AM
The birds are welcome to leave. Keep the Earth human!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by anubi on Saturday May 10 2014, @10:01AM
It wasn't all that long ago that even simple electrical illumination was unheard of.
Much less radio and TV.
Find out how we screwing up the birds, and we have a good chance of discovering something useful.
side note... we are just now beginning to understand how the biological computer known as DNA is programmed... and we have example code all over the place. Photosynthesis. Electric eels. Fireflies. Brains. Eyes. Muscles. And so much more. That's just for starters. It seems just in my lifetime, the show is just getting started - there is so much to discover. If I were to be allowed a restart, I would want to go into genetic engineering. From what I can see, we are now into bioengineering where we were in electronic communication when the electromechanical relay and vacuum tube were making the rounds ( which was when I got into this ). We knew the fields were there, we just had a lot of research to do to make good use of it, and we are nowhere close to done yet.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday May 11 2014, @01:18AM
That goes without saying, because there is no real limit to what can be learned. However, all too often that phrase, or the more generic "There are things that science doesn't not know" is simply used to dismiss science. I think Dara O'Brian said it best. [youtube.com]
Birds, like people, don't rely on one single thing to find their way. These experiments were done by removing all other ques that they use, sunlight, wind, visual, etc. So yes, when birds are flying at night in heavy overcast, they could lose there way. Which is probably why they sleep then.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday May 10 2014, @12:31PM
It's a bit of a run-away sentence as it is, but I think you need another "how" or "that" in there somewhere to make it make sense.
Also, researchers.
"Got sorted out"? Is that the technical term?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 10 2014, @01:46PM
I don't doubt the various EM crap we spew everywhere has an effect on birds etc., but I assumed the birds used EM fields for some sort of guidance. Thus putting a faraday cage around them didn't jive with them being "sorted out". However in reading elsewhere it seems faraday cages only block static EM fields, not slowly changing fields (like the Earth's own EM fields). This was news to me -- I thought they blocked all EM fields. Seems you could penetrate a faraday cage maliciously more easily then I previously thought by inducing different EM fields. I've always thought it dangerous USians approve technology, medicines, etc., with so little objective evidence of safety. My brief time living in Germany, it was much more difficult to bring different technologies to market due to needing more third party proof of safety.