Scientists Discover Cows Point North 558
Dr Sabine Begall and colleagues from the University of Duisburg-Essen have discovered that cows tend to point north. The researchers studied deer in the Czech Republic and looked at thousands of images of cattle on Google Earth. The animals tended to face north when eating or resting. "We conclude that the magnetic field is the only common and most likely factor responsible for the observed alignment," the scientists wrote in an article. I guess cows will become the must-have item for long-distance hikers now. Having an edible compass would come in handy if you get lost.
Small proviso (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
They may just like sun on their backs and not in their eyes.
Next, these researchers will discover a bizarre new breed of Australian cows that like to point south.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but I also just wanted to be the first to call this finding bullshit. ;-)
Re:Huh (Score:4, Funny)
Correlation is not Causation (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How about a simpler explanation? (Score:5, Funny)
Visions of Wile E. Coyote leap to mind...
Re:Time-averaged sunlight (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps they are showing reverence to the almighty invisible polar cow.
I hear he's where 2% milk comes from.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:4, Funny)
Interesting that the cow in the picture is clearly pointing west. :=)
Feng Shui (Score:2, Funny)
Maybe cows in India are into Feng Shui.
Busy schedule (Score:5, Funny)
when eating or resting
As distinct from all the other varied activities cows fill their day with.
Thanks, Slashdot! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm very glad that Slashdot finally added the ability to include informative pictures with their stories. For too long, I've seen news stories about cows and wondered to myself, "What exactly is a cow? What does one look like?" Now, thanks to this excellent feature, I no longer have to suffer the embarrassment of cow ignorance.
Thank you Slashdot!
Well there is one way to know for sure.... (Score:1, Funny)
Bring 25 cows to the north pole and see if they all arrange themselfs in a star formation.
Where does Gary Larson Live? (Score:5, Funny)
It didn't work... (Score:1, Funny)
The cows in the pictures are pointing left, which is south from where I'm sitting.
Re:I propose a new Game Show (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, I'll play!
My theory is that Google Earth does take good pictures of cows. The resolution isn't good in rural areas where cows normally reside, and it isn't economically feasible to take high-res photos of every single farm. So what they did instead was invested a bunch of money taking one really, really accurate cow picture. Then they did a global search and replace, replacing all the fuzzy cows with their one HD Cow. That cow happened to be facing north-- and thus, all cows seem to be facing north
For the lightning round, I'll suggest they only looked at one herd of cows, and since cows are herd animals, they were all pointing the same direction.
TV Satellite dishes point south (Score:5, Funny)
TV Satellite dishes point south - So when I'm lost in the wilderness, that's what I look for.
Re:Correlation is not Causation (Score:5, Funny)
So now we've got true north, magnetic north, and bovine north?
Re:Small proviso (Score:3, Funny)
are they massless and frictionless?
Re:Time-averaged sunlight (Score:5, Funny)
I also noticed that the cows in a herd all used to point the same direction. It might be north, or it might be south. The prevailing winds in this area tend to be from the north during the winter and the south during the winter. You can ask any rancher, and he will tell you that cows stand with their backs to the wind.
Re:Thanks, Slashdot! (Score:4, Funny)
Weird, the cow in that picture is clearly pointing east!
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
not to mention goats in 4 varieties of leg length, uphill goats, downhill goats, leftfacing goats and rightfacing goats. Legs on the upper slope will be shorter.
That may be so... (Score:3, Funny)
But they're a bugger to strap to your wrist while you are out hiking.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
Well, I have this stash of about 400 neodymium magnets, I'm going to have lots of fun burrying them in the local farmers fields in exciting patterns.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
A well-known scientist once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant cow." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the cow standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's cows all the way down!"
It's a recent phenomenon (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Time-averaged sunlight (Score:5, Funny)
"He"? Dude, I'm never drinking 2% milk again. *shudder*
They may be able to judge direction... (Score:2, Funny)
I'll be here all week and stay away from the veal.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe the cows know global warming is an imminent danger, and are trying to avert the situation by providing a net thrust on the Earth to push us into a higher orbit.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
Well, I have this stash of about 400 neodymium magnets, I'm going to have lots of fun burrying them in the local farmers fields in exciting patterns.
Try to get them to spell out "eat mor chiken".
Re:Time-averaged sunlight (Score:5, Funny)
Which must be confusing for the cows...
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
I believe your right. It appears that the first was, in fact, a shorten version of the longer post. Both conveyed the same concept and nearly all details could be implied from the original statement.
Furthermore, I believe it should be pointed out that the first post was only a single sentence in length; however, the second post was a full three paragraphs of text.
I just wrote this to point out that your statement was indeed correct and appeared too short so I figured I should expand on it. Perhaps the second poster will understand a three paragraph explanation of your statement.
ASCII Cows (Score:5, Funny)
Never before has the slashdot junk character filter been so unfortunate.
Moo [baetzler.de].
Now you're getting silly (Score:5, Funny)
By the way, do rodeo bulls in the northern hemisphere tend to spin in the opposite direction as southern hemisphere bulls? Someone should do a study on this.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:2, Funny)
Jokes are like deadlines...
Re:How about a simpler explanation? (Score:2, Funny)
Visions of Wile E. Coyote leap to mind...
As well they should! He is a Super Genius, after all...
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
what was the comment again?
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I propose a new Game Show (Score:2, Funny)
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
Not very useful for hikers (Score:3, Funny)
You would have to choose between eating the cow and staying lost or using the cow as a compass and staying hungry...
damned flat earthers again... (Score:3, Funny)
The earth is a sphere, so you can't just look at surface patches and expect a uniform distribution. For example, any cow you drop on the north pole is always going to be on a North/South axis. Since there are more cows at higher latitudes, you get preferential North/South orientation even if cows just stand around randomly.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:4, Funny)
If it is truly a result of magnetic field, then they'd be able to show it by showing a correlation to the magnetic declination
Or they could just wait for the poles to reverse then the cow should all roll over on their backs during the shift. The greatest cow tipping on the planet.
Re:I propose a new Game Show (Score:2, Funny)
You seem to have an esp that I don't have.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
You believe his right to do what?
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
who the hell tagged this story with "correlationisnotcausation"?
Clearly, they were referring to the Google practice of using cows to orient their aerial photographs northward.
Re:Huh (Score:2, Funny)
Um, I think you can safely assume that is because you didn't point a satellite camera at them. They only pose facing north for satellite photos. Sufficiently high altitude planes will work for cattle in European countries, but not North America.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Huh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:0, Funny)
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:5, Funny)
Chickens are also fed a smaller version of these, just after birth.
It's called a chick magnet.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:3, Funny)
As most glider pilots can tell you, cows have their backs against the wind. We use them for wind cues during emergency landings.
So does that mean you can't use the term "bullseye" for a good landing? I've got a mental image of a glider slaming into a bull.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:4, Funny)
But it does produce delicious veal that flips itself over automatically when cooking.
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:3, Funny)
You believe his right to do what?
Mom, there making fun of me... again!
Re:You too can be an armchair scientist. (Score:4, Funny)
There? Where?!?