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

all 35 comments
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[โ€“] radix@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Have you ever magnetically levitated a cow? If not, then however magnetic they are, it's less magnetic than frogs.

Were gonna need a bigger magnet

[โ€“] BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 1 week 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.

[โ€“] IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.wtf 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Fucking cows, how do they work?

[โ€“] ToastedRavioli@midwest.social 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week 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

[โ€“] LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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

[โ€“] ebolapie@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[โ€“] militaryintelligence@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[โ€“] ebolapie@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Anymore should learn to listen a little better

[โ€“] atropa@piefed.social 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Only in murica , cows dont need magnets .

[โ€“] tidderuuf@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

RFK Jr and Kid Rock will be launching a "Drink Your Whole Magnets" campaign this week.

[โ€“] _stranger_@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago
[โ€“] lessthanluigi@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Imagine instead of eating steak and burgers, you just start eating a bunch of metal and they would call it "meat"

[โ€“] OldManBOMBIN@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

I have one of these magnets on the side of my work truck. Didn't know I was driving a cow

[โ€“] xep@discuss.online 2 points 1 week ago

Cows aren't... real...?