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Do Humans Have a Compass in their Nose?

theregister.co.uk — Some years ago scientists at CALTECH (California Institute of Technology in Pasadena) discovered that humans possess a tiny, shiny crystal of magnetite in the ethmoid bone, located between your eyes, just behind the nose...

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  • GnuTzu, on 10/12/2007, -3/+36And, next we'll start to hear about people who claim they can tap into this.

    Now, if only I could fly south.
    • iching, on 10/12/2007, -9/+21Some people have no sense of direction let alone know what direction the sun sets or rises to find south from the position of the sun during the day. I know this from camping with a friend who could get lost without relying on his GPS device to find his way back to the camp. He didn't even know how to find Polaris in the night sky.
    • GenVoss, on 10/12/2007, -17/+0you could fly south, if only you could tap into that little compass and figure out which direction south is.
    • theredbicycle, on 10/12/2007, -17/+10so that's why it's always felt weird there when put a piece of metal or especially a magnet right there...seriously, i just thought it was just a psychological effect.
    • Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+46@iching:

      I don't know how to find Polaris in the night sky either, and if I did, I wouldn't know what to do with that information. I don't need to know those things - BECAUSE I HAVE A COMPASS UP MY NOSE.
    • Chompy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+24"He didn't even know how to find Polaris in the night sky."

      I can't find Polaris in the sky either, but I have an excellent sense of direction and rarely get lost. Not sure what your point is, here.
    • t.toe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5my guess is that anyone can develop their sense of direction if they try. I know this because I used to have no sense of direction whatsoever. after a few years of driving like that it started to drive me nuts, so I consciously started paying attention to whether I was heading North, South, East, or West, and guess what? my sense of direction improved. drastically.

      as far as a magnet in my nose, well, I've never noticed it before... but now I'm gonna try to start paying attention to it... if it's still functional, that is.
    • rnelsonee, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Yeah, to be honest, as long as you have a map and a compass to back yourself up in case of GPS/battery failure, who needs to find Polaris? I mean, it helps, sure, but I'd bet most people that camp don't know a) How to find Polars, b) can't find any constellation except Orion's belt, c) can't start a fire without matches, d) let alone with just sticks. I've been camping a lot (Eagle scout), and I've never even need to do any of these things, because I have a compass, map, and matches with me at all times when camping.

      Edit: I agree than sense of direction can be learned. Just learn the basics - like which building is where, or which direction roads face, and you'll get the hang of it. Anyone can learn what direction they're facing if they look at a map beforehand and learn the basics. Knowing that the sun rises in the East, is South at noon (in the northern hemisphere), and is in the West at night also helps.
    • michaelkirk, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3@Chompy

      I can find Polaris in the night sky, but don't have a very good sense of direction. I just thought that was weird.
    • iamnos, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4I've always had a pretty good sense of direction, maybe this is why. However, for a while, I was on methyphenidate. (I was diagnosed with adult ADD). After taking it for a couple of months, I found I no longer had any sense of direction. I've since stopped taking it, and my sense of direction has returned.
    • AWBoy666, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6A longer article I read in popular science a few years ago pointed out that only men have this fragment in their faces. They cited several studies where disoriented men could find north but disoriented women couldn't.
    • JettaMan, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2The compass is vestigial. Before we became technologically advanced and discovered the compass we probably used this. I'm curious if races that didn't discover the compass have a functional "nose compass".
    • Aikinai, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7@theredbicycle

      I know exactly what you mean. I've always felt that too, and most people don't believe me until I show it to them. I used to think it was psychological until I did some (unscientific) tests. You can have someone in a dark room (to discount shadows over the eyelids) and if you slowly put a pencil (real wood/lead pencils work the best) up near the person's nose between their eyes, they will feel it. Different people feel it at different strengths. I always felt like it was really pulling toward that spot. You can do it to yourself too, it's just that then you can chalk it up to psychologically not wanting something between your eyes. I used to think it was just touching tiny hairs I couldn't see or something, but this might explain it. Anyway, my sense or direction is horrible, but I have this effect really strong, so I don't think mine works right anymore.
    • anodos, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@theredbcycle, I too have always had that sensation and always thought it was just psychological. But I remember when I was a kid telling other kids about this sensation. They made fun of me, so I allowed them to blindfold me and pass metal in front of my face (I was also curious if it was for real). Sure enough, I could sense whenever they placed a metal object near my face and between my eyes. They even tried to trick me several times, but they never succeeded. Even after that, I still figured it must be psychological. Maybe my subconscious was picking up on their giggling, or the movement of their hands, or whatever. Perhaps it's for real after all?
    • SkeletaLlama, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I also can sense magnets and magnetic metals when they're near my nose. Nobody believes me either. I read articles about this nose magnet thing years ago but people think it's pseudo-science and I'm making it up.

      I honestly don't think it helps me find magnetic north, especially not indoors, where sometimes my nose starts tingling around electronic equipment and wiring. It's fairly sensitive but I've never attempted to navigate by it, I wouldn't even know how to begin. Maybe its something you have to practice and experiment with. I don't normally pay attention to it. I think I'm going to start paying attention and see if the sensation does change based on my orientation to north.
    • digg0digg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0magnetoception: new word of the day. .
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethmoid_bone
    • bronstad, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@Aikini
      that is called facial vision, and it is a well-studied phenomenon
    • JackyTreehorn, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5"Some people have no sense of direction"

      We call these people "women"
    • iching, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1You are here

      http://www.bobgruen.com/files/johnlennon/files/R.009%20JOHN%20&%20YOKO-YOU%20ARE%20HERE.jpg

      http://www.ecology.com/earth-at-a-glance/earth-at-a-glance-feature/images/1.jpg
  • TheToecutter, on 10/12/2007, -4/+52Is this why Michael Jackson always seems lost?
    • Netmindstorm, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1Partially, but it's also because of all the time he(?) has to spend contemplating "Mens" or "Womens" when nature calls.
  • mantlepro, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Sweet! Now all I need to do is read the man page... $>man knosecompass
  • LFAB, on 10/12/2007, -8/+1I saw somebody with one.

    Or else it was a really big nose ring...
  • trenchMonkey, on 10/12/2007, -12/+1And I thought boogers were just tasty treats...
    • Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8They are; the magnetite is inside a bone, not a booger.
    • trenchMonkey, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Could this explain why men are drawn to look down at women's breasts? Could that really be true "North"?
  • ChaserHimself, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3After 10,000 more years of evolution no one will ever get lost.
    • ABadInAlbany, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18I'd bet our sense of direction is poorer now than it was 10,000 years ago. they didn't have, nor need, street signs then.
    • Nougat, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5@abadincrotch:

      They didn't usually go very far either, and if they did, they'd just make it back whenever, if ever.

      You don't need to carry a compass when your range is very short, or if your range is long, you don't care when you return.
    • Chompy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7Are you kidding? The idiots are the one breeding massive litters these days; smart people only have one or two kids, if any. The future of humanity isn't looking very bright right now.
    • Netmindstorm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Actually, they had a sign for Target (the store) way back then: http://www.ordernatural.com/newsletter/images/petroglyph.jpg
    • gruk, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0@chompy
      feel neglected much among your 10 brothers and sisters?
    • ABadInAlbany, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@Nougat: you're telling me they hunted over a very limited range and never migrated? try again buddy. not until the dawn of agriculture, which was JUST beginning to take hold at that point, if even then. your comment is pure fallacy. who says anything about returning? you still need to get where you're going to begin with, and visual landscape features alone won't do the job.
    • rnelsonee, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4The posts above may be joke, but that's now how evolution works. First off, if we have small magnetometers, it's most likely a residual artifact of a once-functioning organ - so if anything, it's on it's way out. But chances are it's here to stay. A mutation (such as having the little compass disappear) only takes hold if the new mutations allow the mutant organism to live to sexual maturity and have offspring more likely than it's non-mutated friends/brothers. Because us humans are such social animals, we're not going to choose a mate based on whether or not they have this thing behind their nose, so until the "no magnet in the nose" mutation becomes a dominant gene, it's not going to go away.

      Now, there are plenty of other things that have gone away. Things like the appendix - once used to filter out hard-to-digest items like tree bark, went away not because proto-humans thought the smaller-appendix dudes cuter, it's because having a large appendix required upkeep and energy for the body to take care of. That, coupled with the fact that the appendix is basically poisonous, and when they erupted, reduced the lifespan enough so that more and more smaller-appendix related humans reached sexual maturity than the others, and then passed on the gene.
  • xtmno3, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7The way to test would be blindfolding people and spinning them around on a device and asking which direction they think they are facing.

    Then, do the same thing, but with a really powerful magnet near them on some non-North direction and see how their answers vary.
    • ABadInAlbany, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10wouldn't work thanks to fluid in your cochlea overwhelming all other perception of direction at that point.
    • Jelfish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3How about rather than moving the blind-folded person, you only move the magnet and ask people to guess where it is?
    • Jelfish, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Oh, and of course at the beginning of the test, you would orient the person first by turning on the field and telling that person where it is.
  • Humptydank, on 10/12/2007, -4/+22To be honest it's the protractor up my ass I'm more worried about.
  • Ascus, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3It wasn't there until after I was abducted by a UFO.
    • Netmindstorm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"Don't worry, we'll come back to get it--it's only a loaner"
  • illt, on 11/06/2007, -1/+7No one remember the home improvement episode where wilson explains this to tim??
    • elguando, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Sadly that was the first thing that came to my mind when I read the headline. I had always thought that everything Wilson said was BS.
    • wepeel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That was the first thing that I thought of too. I, on the other hand, thought Wilson was the smartest man alive, and always thought about the writers researching all these offbeat topics to put into the show.
    • oddmanout, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i havent seen that in YEARS, and that was the first thing i thought of..... that might be like 10 years old or something... i feel like my most vivid memories are of what happened on tv.
  • gminor, on 10/12/2007, -9/+1I can image all the new products and attachments for your nose. The most popular ones:
    NeverPick
    iSneeze
    • klaymen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1what do those have to do with this supposed natural compass?
  • signal15, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13It's gotta be just miniscule, or the MRI machines would rip it right out.
  • loqqq, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Toucan Sam was right all along!
  • Manguskahn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I wonder if some people have larger magnetite crystals than others and if the size of the crystal can explain why some people have very little sense of direction while others have excellent senses of direction.
  • blynder, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2There is a study, and I can't site it, but they made an interesting point about the growth of bacteria being affected by magnets. Could the Magnetite in our nose be a vestigial, or do we actually use it, I think that is the real question.
    • burningpenguin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I was pretty sure this was a vestigial structure. I doubt humans have much use for it.
  • tdp05, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I need to RMA mine. I can get turned around and can't tell you which direction I'm pointed.
    • StarManta, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3When you find God's address, let me know. I need to RMA my sex life.
  • rhettnyedotorg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7So *this* is why i've been staring at my computer for 12 years.

    the magnetic field just feels right.
  • Chairboy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1We're surrounded from birth by high powered magnets. What are the odds that this might affect how useful these are? What if the reason we can't "tap into" this is because the iron deposits have been yanked off the nerves they would have been in by a childhood X-Ray or even just playing with magnets?
    • trenchMonkey, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0huh?
    • subgeniusd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Yeah that was rather incoherent but I agree in principle that being continuously subjected to electromagnetic fields in modern urban settings could produce peculiar sensations on this vestigial sense.

      Not to mention the fact that magnetic north pole drift has been increasing lately......
    • Chairboy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Didn't mean to be incoherent. Some posters above were wondering why we couldn't all 'tap into' this built in compass reliably, and I was suggesting that it might be because we, among other things, play with magnets or get MRIs or whatnot when we're young and it messes up the magnetic sense.

      What's mysterious about that?
  • Ndiggnation, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9My grilfriend, apparently, was born without this..
    • Ndiggnation, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3As for me, I was born without the ability to spell check..
    • santiago1, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5 Who, the guy you have barbeques with?
    • Ogopogo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1As for me, I was born without the ability to spell check..

      It's not that difficult to spell check , unless you hear it as Czech ?
  • zombieman, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5And now for something completely different - a man with a tape recorder up his nose.
  • Lane, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1i suppose this "compass" was of some use before someone noticed the direction of the sun or for those rare occasions that your in a cave...
    • ABadInAlbany, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1can't use the sun for much real navigation, and using the stars didn't come about until very recently. you can't migrate several degrees of latitude and expect to end up at your usual winter grounds without something more accurate than the sun alone.
  • noseeme, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I know I do, and let me tell you, it was painful.
  • weprin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Would this be a true sixth sense?
    Perhaps it is weak in us because we humans have not been needing to rely on sense of direction for raw survival skills for a long, long time.
  • dziban303, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I have a pretty good sense of direction. Some might call it astonishing...I can tell you within maybe 30 degrees which way is north, even when trapped inside a casino here in Vegas.
    • thewise1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I'd be surprised if any compass worked in a vegas casino; the magnetic interference in there must be insane.
  • 12340987, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1i think my nose is broken
  • rezophonic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Several years ago me and a friend made up a story about "nasalibrium," and how we could use the orientation of the iron (i.e. in our blood) in the earth's magnetic field as sensed by our noses to find our ways. Of course, we did this as an explanation for a gullible blond female as to why men never ask for directions, but I guess we weren't too far off. Looks like I'm going to have to find that girl's e-mail and prove to her we weren't B.S.-ing (or at least our B.S. wasn't purely such)...
  • tdawson2012, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Its probably just a residual structure that no longer functions to any great extent for humans or other higher mammals for that matter. When something loses its evolutionary advantage, it doesn't necessarily disappear in a puff of smoke, genetically speaking.
  • ocntscha, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I'm surprised I see nobody questioning the validity of this story. The article has 2 instances of vagueness in just the first four words, it begins.. "Some years ago scientists.."

    Any remotely decent journalist would tell us precisely how many years ago and exactly which scientists.
  • bliz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I always have this weird feeling when I pinch the bridge of my nose like all the blood's gushing there or something. I wonder if anyone has the same feeling before, and could it be related to the article.

    I can also get the same response when some foreign object is about to poke there. Perhaps it a defensive mechanism.
  • ZenMojo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2This is old news. I learned this from Wilson on an episode of Home Improvement over 10 years ago to explain why men don't ask for directions.

    (By the way, from my experience, this is pretty accurate. I can tell which direction is north just by thinking "up" and rotating around. After a while you get used to using it.)
  • liuite, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0maybe this would explain why when i played hide and seek as an adult...i could find the target while blind folded...just follow your nose.
  • rationalist, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"Do Humans Have a Compass in their Nose?"

    Sounds painful. Bad enough when little kids stuff peas up there...
  • uberneoconcert, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0i'm 1/16 "native american" and my sense of direction SUCKS! maybe i need to re-magnetize!
  • epheterson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1That sucks.. I still rely on knowing what direction I'm facing within a building, and where the building is in relation to streets. I'd really like to tap into this.. shadows don't work too well at noon.
  • Archangeleon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1What would really like to know is whether or not there is a gender difference in the size or some other quality of the magnetite that could account for the difference in direction finding and navigating present in people. It would be a pretty interesting question.
  • sonofagunn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1They must have looked in the noses of men. Women get multitalking, err, I mean multitasking, and all we get is freaking directional sense from a compass in our nose.
  • mbthompson, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I think I broke mine from picking at it.
  • nightwulf9999, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0mmmmmm, this chicken smells like north.
  • Grambodino, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Maybe it serves a purpose that has nothing to do with direction finding at all. Or perhaps the ability to use this has been lost somewhere during the chain of evolution.
  • computerdude33, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2The FSM touches us all with this noodly gift.

    RAmen.
  • oskite, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1My magnetite crystal's bigger than yours.
  • StaticGTF, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Finding north by use of the polar star (polaris) is of no great consequence if you don't know where north were at your point of origin, if even then...

    True, by planning your route from the knowledge of where north is, you may avoid going in circles (handy in places with few landmarks and such). BUT it still won't do you any good if you lack a good sense of direction/location AND have paid attention to landmarks and places you've already passed.

    By being "aware" of where you are in relation to where you are headed, and from where you started out, you are less likely to get lost. If you get lost use your "mental map" to get back on track, and remember...

    DON'T PANIC!
  • interpaul, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeah why not? I have a compass in my penis. It always points North...then it goes South. :(
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