On January 11, one of the world’s top science journals, Nature, reported an unexpected acceleration in the movement of the Earth’s magnetic poles that has required an immediate update of the World Magnetic Model used for global navigation by ships at sea, Google Maps and smartphones. Scientists have speculated that the unexpected acceleration is due to “liquid iron sloshing within the planet’s core”, and that in the case of the north magnetic pole, the likely culprit was a “high-speed jet of liquid iron beneath Canada moving the pole towards Siberia”.