Do humans have a compass in their nose?
11/20/2006
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.
It seems that magnetite helps direction finding in animals and helps migratory species migrate successfully by allowing them to draw upon the earths magnetic fields. But scientists are not sure how they do this.
The funny thing is that I have often get a strange tingling sensation in that area. Usually when I am lying in bed after a night out on the town (or out on the living room, more often these days 😐 ).
Of course, just because this exists, doesn’t mean we actually use it for anything. Or maybe we’ve forgotten how, since we don’t need it. There isn’t much of a reason to assume that this isn’t vestigial, or is it?
The biggest question asked by this finding however, is how can I learn to use it to find where I parked my car?