Although computer-assisted facial-recognition techniques for cow-indentification are making considerable progress (see previous), there are other ways of doing so – nose prints for example. Researchers Ary Noviyanto and Aniati Murni Arymurthy of the Faculty of Computer Science, Universitas Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia, outline the details in a comprehensve report for the journal Computers and Electronics in […]
Tag: cattle
Face Recognition of Cattle: Can it be Done?
“Contrary to popular belief that all cattle look alike, this paper presents a current state of the art research and study in animal biometric based recognition a system which provides an important insight in the identification of cattle based on their facial images.” – so explain researchers Santosh Kumar, Shrikant Tiwari, and Sanjay Kumar Singh […]
Bells and No-bells (alpine cattle study)
Dairy cows, particularly in alpine regions (Switzerland, Austria &etc) are often seen (and heard) wearing bells. See photo: Although it’s traditional to fit such cows with bells, a question can, and indeed has, been asked : ‘Do Bells Affect Behaviour and Heart Rate Variability in Grazing Dairy Cows?’ Answers are provided in a 2015 PLoS […]
Further cow magnetic alignment findings
There are further findings in the ongoing international detective effort to understand the extent to which cows are inclined to align themselves more or less magnetically. A new study presents details: “Cattle on pastures do align along the North-South axis, but the alignment depends on herd density,” Pavel Slaby, Kateřina Tomanova, M. Vacha, Journal of Comparative […]
The ‘Animal Elimination Problem’
Are vegetarians being cruel to animals? In the sense that they might be contributing to the ‘Animal Elimination Problem’ (i.e. as a result of their refusal to eat them, are they denying as yet unborn bred-for-food animals the right to a life)? Such problems have been examined by top-of-his-class Professor Stephen H. Webb (Wabash College, […]
Inventions to shoo livestock from railroad tracks, etc
Mark Frauenfelder writes, on BoingBoing: Why do cows and horses like standing on railroad tracks? Here are three inventions to encourage them to loiter elsewhere. One involves a jet of hot water, another adds a whistle to the water jet, and a third involves a humanoid automaton that waves its hands and strikes a gong. […]