this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026
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Science Memes

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If you've ever gone hiking through a farmer's field, you've likely noticed that your compass points directly to the nearest cow.

This is not an accident, and is part of a government conspiracy to replace all livestock with robots, in order to make them more accessible to aliens beaming them up from orbit[0].

This slow transition from biological to mechanical cows is known as hardware disease[1], and should be celebrated.

The more you know.

0: https://www.aemagnets.com/news/how-cow-magnets-save-animals.html
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_disease

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[–] BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 4 days ago (3 children)

So, you can actually use cows as a compass to a point.

Cows pretty consistently tend to align themselves on a north-south axis when resting. I don't believe anyone has ever figured out why.

[–] IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.wtf 20 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Fucking cows, how do they work?

[–] ToastedRavioli@midwest.social 9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

They do know why, its that cows have some directional sense based in electromagnetism like an actual compass. Cows that are near high voltage power lines dont align the same way as cows normally do. Their sense gets messed up by the strength of the electrical fields that surround high voltage lines

They probably can see them, just like birds

[–] LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Compasses point north, not to any nearest magnet. If compasses pointed to any nearest magnet, they wouldn't work as intended.

[–] ebolapie@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] militaryintelligence@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[–] ebolapie@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

Anymore should learn to listen a little better