How does a magnetic compass work? Well, it’s all down to basic physics and human ingenuity. The key component of a standard baseplate compass is its magnetized needle, which is allowed to spin freely ...

Navigation of the world’s wild places using a compass and paper map is a must-have skill. With it, you’ll always find your way home. Little magnetic needles have been pointing the way for explorers ...

This material is taken from Chapter 6 - Wilderness Travel from The Backpackers Field Manual by Rick Curtis. For more details on this exciting book check out The Backpacker's Field Manual Page. This ...

All products featured here are independently selected by our editors and writers. If you buy something through links on our site, Gizmodo may earn an affiliate commission. Reading time 11 minutes This ...

Unlike the geographic North Pole, which stays put at the top of the globe, the North Magnetic Pole moves, and it historically does this at a fairly steady rate. Lately, it’s moved at about 31 miles ...

Bangor University provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK. Birds have an impressive ability to navigate. They can fly long distances, to places that they may never have visited before, ...

It might sound like something out of a Hollywood disaster movie, but the world's magnetic northern pole has changed. The magnetic north pole is the point that compasses point to as north and is ...

If you're lost, you need a map and a compass. The map pinpoints where you are, and the compass orients you in the right direction. Migratory birds, on the other hand, can traverse entire hemispheres ...

Biologists have identified, for the first time, that mature reed warblers are able to detect the declination from magnetic north, and use the scale of the declination or change from true north to ...

There’s something about the pull of the great outdoors that seeps into your bones. You start off slow, maybe for a walk in the woods near your house. But soon, that call of the wild has you gearing up ...