In retrospect, the helmet should have been a clue…

Of all the super-senses that animals possess, the ability to sense the Earth’s magnetic field must be the most puzzling. We’ve known that birds can do it since the 1960s, but every new attempt to understand this ability – known as magnetoreception – just seems to complicate matters even further.

Take the latest discovery. Le-Qing Wu and David Dickman from the Baylor College of Medicine have found neurons in a pigeon’s brain that encode the properties of a magnetic field. They buzz in different ways depending on how strong the field is, and which direction it’s pointing in.

This is a big step. Scientists have identified parts of the brain that are