Hi there, welcome back after the Bank Holiday weekend. I hope you had a good one. Whatever you got up to, then I hope you enjoyed it. And it was a big weekend on TV too with the Olympic athletes returning and the party outside Buckingham Palace and then the Edinburgh Tattoo. Were now looking forward to 2012! I wonder if our Team GB athletes are going to allow themselves a little bit of a holiday first, or if theyre going to get back on the track, or in the pool or in the gym straightaway!!
Cows In A Line I expect youve noticed and commented on the weird way that herds of grazing animals always face the same direction in their field. I always thought it was because the herd were let in the field from one gate and then the herd slowly make their way across the field and then when they get to the other end, they make their way back. So theyre always moving in the same direction from one source. But perhaps thats not so! Images from Google Earth have confirmed that cattle tend to align their bodies in a north-south direction. Presumably, some poor scientist has been logging the direction of cows in fields day after day! Apparently, wild deer also display this behaviour. Weve all heard how magnetic forces and the moon can affect things like our tides and even womens menstrual cycles, but scientists believe the Earths magnetic fields may influence the behaviour of these animals too. They suggest we look at the Earth as a huge magnet, with a magnetic north and south at the No! rth and South Poles. And its not just cows facing the same way in their field that could be affected by this. Other species like birds and salmon are also known to use the Earths magnetic fields in migration, rather like a natural satellite navigation system! These poor old scientists studied Google Earth images of 8,510 grazing and resting cattle in 308 pastures plains across the world. As amazing as satellite imagery is, these scientists couldnt zoom in enough to see which way the animals were facing, but they could tell that the animals tended to face either north or south. So there you go. Is there a scientific reason why cows in fields tend to face the same way? Solar Power Heres the stuff of movies a solar powered plane! And this UK-built plane has now set an unofficial world endurance record for a flight by an unmanned aircraft. This solar powered plane stayed in the air for more than three days, running purely on power from the sun. And during the night, it relied on its batteries that it had recharged during the daylight hours. This plane is being trialled by the US military to help support its troops on the ground and it may be used for reconnaissance missions or battlefield communications. The solar panels used on the plane amazingly are no thicker than sheets of paper and theyre glued over the wings of the aircraft. So, a UK-built plane has unofficially broken the world endurance record for a flight by an unmanned aircraft! Happiness Again, those busy scientists have been working hard this time on a world map of happiness. And here are the headlines! We should move to Denmark if its happiness were seeking in life. The responses of 80,000 people worldwide were used to map out wellbeing across the globe. Denmark came out on top, followed closely by Switzerland and Austria. The USA came out at 23rd. And it looks like were glum in the UK as we only came out 41st. And the most unhappy places were Zimbabwe and Burundi at the bottom of the list. Trends have come out from these results though and scientists believe that a nations level of happiness was most closely associated with health levels. Prosperity and education were the next strongest determinants of national happiness too. Scientists believe that the government should work on making its population happier, rather than wealthier. What do you reckon to that one? So from that survey, it looks like were all a bit glum in the UK. Oh dear. What a way to start a week off, especially if youre suffering from post-Bank Holiday blues! Join me tonight if you can for Look North. Now that the Olympics are over, everything is back to normal. The lunchtime news is back on at one oclock and of course Look North tonight will be on at the usual time of half past six. So join me if you can. Take care, Peter Your email address will be held by the BBC and kept confidential, and will only be used in relation to this newsletter. You will be given the option to unsubscribe from this newsletter each time you receive it. Please visit the BBC's Privacy & Cookies Policy (www.bbc.co.uk/privacy) for more information And for the latest news and more where you live, go to: http://bbc.co.uk/humber and http://bbc.co.uk/lincolnshire ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the BBC Look North newsletter, go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/looknorthhull/newsletter/newsletter_index.shtml, enter your email address in the unsubscribe box. 1.94.4
