Modelling heat loss from a semi-spherical cow udder

Theoretical physicists are sometimes accused of making over-simplifications for mathematical models. This has lead to many variations on the spherical cow story, where a physicist claims to be able to cure a sick cow, but only if it is a spherical cow in a vacuum. Oddly, most iterations of this tale ignore heat radiated from […]

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 […]

How now, warm cow [Podcast 50]

Heat loss from a cow — that’s the deal in this week’s Improbable Research podcast. SUBSCRIBE on Play.it, iTunes, or Spotify to get a new episode every week, free. This week, Marc Abrahams  —with dramatic readings by Daniel Rosenberg — tells about: Heat loss from a cow — Khan, Zahid A., Irfan Anjum Badruddin, G. A. Quadir, and K. N. Seetharamu (2006). ‘A Quick and Accurate […]

Cow gas-extraction for automobile propulsion project

The cow-centric project, as reported by Ben Schiller for Fast Company, is as much performance art as state-of-the-art technology performance: “Each cow apparently passes enough gas to power a car or a fridge. Imagine the possibilities…. The project from Argentina’s National Institute of Agricultural Technology is only a proof-of-concept at this stage. But it is […]

A sort of cow, and some sorts of cockroaches

Here’s a year-end tiny collection comprising a cow and lots of cockroaches. The cow is mechanical, caught here on video (Thanks to Rachel Ehrenberg for bringing it to our attention): [vimeo]15577865[/vimeo] The University of California supplies this description: Cow: the digestive system’s complex mysteries: Nova Jiang is an artist and UCLA alumna who makes work […]

Does water or blowing air stimulate Canadian cows to defecate?

Cow defecation and two of the four traditional Greek elements that constitute the universe are the subjects of this inquiry: “Does water or blowing air stimulate cows to defecate?” Marianne Villettaz Robichaud, Anne Marie de Passillé, Jeffrey Rushen, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, epub February 5, 2013. (Thanks to investigator Jim Handman for bringing this to our […]