Posted on February 18 2013
The migration of salmon has always been inspiring, and new research published February 7 in the journal Current Biology sheds some light on how they manage to navigate seas to reach their river of birth: magnetic fields. “To find their way back home across thousands of kilometers of ocean, salmon imprint on [i.e. learn and remember] the magnetic field that exists where they first enter the sea as juveniles,” explains Nathan Putman, a post-doctoral researcher at Oregon State University and lead author on the study. Via National Geographic.