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Scientists May Have Finally Figured Out How Pigeons Are So Good at Directions

It’s a remarkable ability that we’ve been taking advantage of for centuries, yet we’re only just beginning to understand.

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Humans have been using pigeons to send messages across long distances for thousands of years, thanks to their remarkable sense of direction. According to new research published in the journal Science, we may have been looking for the source of that ability in the wrong organ. There was a simple logic to scientists assuming the answer had something to do with their brains or eyes or even their inner ears. The answer was much lower: their liver.

It all has to do with how pigeons, or any animal really, detect the Earth’s magnetic field. The leading theories were all based on the idea that they “see” magnetic fields with some kind of........

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