Ford has beaten General Motors for the first time in nearly a century, in terms of number of US factory workers. Ford has 50,703 to GM's 50,300 or so.
Answers. Well, the simplest answer is that the astrolabe pretty well had to be used at night and could not be used in bad weather. The compass, which relys on the magnetic field of the Earth rather than a visualiztion of the stars, works at any time, and in any weather.
Although MRI does not emit the damaging ionizing radiation that is found in x-ray and CT imaging, it does employ a strong magnetic field. The magnetic field extends beyond the machine and exerts very powerful forces on objects of iron, some steels, and other magnetizable objects; it is strong enough to fling a wheelchair across the room.