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| | Chickens orient using a magnetic compass |
 | | In the new work, researchers including Rafael Freire from the University of New England (Australia), Wolfgang Wiltschko and Roswitha Wiltschko from the University of Frankfurt, Germany, and Ursula Munro from the University of Technology in Sydney, demonstrated for the first time that birds could be trained to respond to a magnetic direction. |
 | | The researchers trained domestic chicks to find an object that was associated with imprinting and was behind one of four screens placed in the corners of a square apparatus, and, crucially, showed that the chicks' direction of movement during searching for the hidden imprinting stimulus was influenced by shifting the magnetic field. |
 | | The researchers include Rafael Freire and Lesley J. Rogers of the University of New England in Armidale, NSW, Australia; Ursula H. Munro of the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia; and Roswitha Wiltschko and Wolfgang Wiltschko of the Zoologisches Institut der J.W.Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt Main, Germany. |
| www.eurekalert.org /pub_releases/2005-08/cp-cou081705.php (448 words) |
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