Guide to Bovine Reproduction

There's a lot of good information to be found over at the Visual Guide to Bovine Reproduction. For instance,

Estrus detection: "The cow that stands to be mounted is the cow in heat. Cows are bisexual, hence may be mounted by a bull or another cow. Standing to be mounted is the gold standard of estrus detection."

And also:

Cow Eating Placenta: "It is not uncommon for a cow to eat her fetal membranes. This may cause digestive problems. It is an old-wives tale that the fetal membranes contain hormones that will benefit uterine involution. Some believe that it is the instinct of the cow "remove the evidence" to discourage predators."

What I find strange is the design of the site. For some reason, you don't really expect a guide to bovine reproduction to have fancy scrolling menus.

Creative Grooming

The Sandy Paws Grooming Shop of Yucca Valley, CA has won many creative grooming awards. It's not hard to see why:

Cat-Rat Cooperation Disproves Darwin

Chuck's post last week about the guy who trained a rat to sit on top of a cat sitting on a dog, reminded me of the groundbreaking research of Dr. Loh Seng Tsai, conducted back in the late 1940s/early 1950s.

Dr. Tsai trained a cat and a rat to cooperate together in order to get food. From the LA Times, July 15, 1951:


Dr. Tsai reported that, "Soon all the pairs of cats and rats began to work together. Finally their cooperation was so perfect that they took only three seconds to reach their food from the entrance."

Dr. Tsai figured that these results disproved Darwin's concept of the Survival of the Fittest. He told the LA Times reporter: "In the face of the fact that even alley cats and rats live together, eat together, sleep together, play together and work together, Darwin's theory seems at most only a half-truth."

What's really amazing is that this guy was a professor of biology at first the University of Chicago, then Tulane, then UCLA, and yet he didn't seem to have a clear understanding of what Darwin meant by the Survival of the Fittest. Nor, as far as I can tell, did anyone ever call him out as a crackpot. In fact, there was talk of nominating him for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Dr. Dove’s Unicorn Bull

In 1933 Dr. W.F. Dove, a biologist at the University of Maine, conducted an experiment to find out if he could create a "unicorn bull." He removed the two knots of tissue on the side of the bull's head that would normally have developed into horns and transplanted them to the center of the forehead. The experiment was a success. A single, massive horn grew there.

The unicorn horn made the bull the unchallenged leader of its herd. But Dr. Dove observed that the unicorn bull was actually an extremely docile creature. He wrote:


Link: Unicorn Garden

New Smokey the Bear PSA

Remember our earlier post, VISION IN THE FOREST, where Smokey the Bear appeared to a young girl during the 1950's?

Well, the new Smokey PSA is disturbing in its own fashion, as it promotes the notion that any of us could turn into a bear at any time.

Maybe they were inspired by an earlier version that follows second here.

Cow Festival in Switzerland

Each year the cows of Switzerland get to wear pretty hats.

Read all about the tradition here, then watch a few seconds of video.


Cow Festival in Mels from jillnachtman on Vimeo.

Peace on Earth

Mankind replaced by squirrels? See it all in this famous cartoon.

Feruza Jumaniyozova

Fire-breathing, snakes, bongos and beautiful women. It just doesn't get any better than in this video of Uzbekistan singer Feruza Jumaniyozova.

NOTE: if you click on her link, her music begins playing loudly automatically, perhaps not in line with a work environment.

The Sculptures of Stephanie Metz

I feel pretty safe in saying that the amazing wool sculptures of Stephanie Metz are pretty weird.

See more of them at her home page.

Follies of the Mad Men #49

[From Playboy magazine for October 1965.]

If you wear one of our sweaters, you'll look like a ridiculous chimp.

"Me Retailer, you Jerk!"

ADDENDUM: Reader Vern notes that the text ridicules the chimp as wearing an older, out-of-style sweater, while the man sports the manufacturer's sleek new model. That's a good point. Nonetheless, how convincing is the comparison, when the human's rival is a monkey?

All original content in posts is Copyright © 2008 by the author of the post, either Alex Boese ("Alex"), Paul Di Filippo ("Paul"), or Chuck Shepherd ("Chuck"). All rights reserved. The banner illustration at the top of this page is Copyright © 2008 by Rick Altergott.