A pile of old bull
Rifling through a particularly dust-ridden pile in our extensive piling system in search of inspiration and a garibaldi biscuit we thought we last saw there, we encounter an old paper from the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science by Cassandra Blaine Tucker at the University of California, Davis, and her colleagues, entitled .
With gaze averted from a co-author named Daniel Martin Weary, we move on to the abstract 鈥� the meat, so to speak 鈥� of the research. 鈥淒airy cattle spend, on average, between 8 and 15 h/d lying down鈥�, the authors begin with magisterial authority. 鈥淥ur objective was to describe the laterality of lying behaviour and assess several internal and external factors that may affect laterality.鈥� Those factors include 鈥渢ime spent and time since eating or lying before choosing to lie down again鈥� and 鈥渢he slope and the amount of bedding on the lying surface鈥�.
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The grounds for such research, we learn, is a long-running debate as to whether cows prefer to lie on their left side or, in fact, swing neither way (right-wing cows are apparently not a thing). Sadly, the authors are unable to take a side. 鈥淟aterality in lying is shifted to the left in some groups but not others,鈥� they conclude.
Still, not all is lost. 鈥淐ows are also much more likely to terminate long lying bouts and we speculate that continuous lying may become uncomfortable when bouts are longer than 80 min, indicating that cows may switch sides to alleviate this discomfort,鈥� they write.
Feedback is entranced by a vision of researchers with clipboards sitting on picnic stools in fields, licking their pencils in anticipation of their subjects鈥� next move. From our current semi-recumbent position, which hasn鈥檛 shifted in at least an hour, we feel this sort of analysis could be usefully extended to other species. Many would, we suspect, leap at the chance to be part of human trials.
Lateral thinking
This reminds Feedback of the old joke about an engineer, a physicist and a pure mathematician who see a black cow lying in a field shortly after crossing the English-Scottish border on a train (subeditors please note: whether at Gretna Green or Berwick-upon-Tweed isn鈥檛 specified). The engineer exclaims: 鈥淟ook 鈥� Scottish cows are black!鈥� The physicist replies: 鈥淣o 鈥� some Scottish cows are black.鈥� The pure mathematician reacts with irritation. 鈥淭here is at least one field, containing at least one cow, of which at least one side is black,鈥� she says.
Old, we said, not good. All we can say is that it looks like the cow won鈥檛 be moving any time soon 鈥� though a mathematician might quibble that this statement has purely statistical validity.
In a roundabout way
Still entranced, Feedback鈥檚 attention is drawn to the website of Erin R. Davis, 鈥淒ata Stuff 鈥� It鈥檚 stuff I made with data鈥�, and particularly her application of data science to ascertain .
The deliciously circular story of how roundabouts conquered the globe 鈥� except the US, where they were invented 鈥� will be familiar to regular readers (21 December 2019, p 65). Erin鈥檚 work confirms this: while 1 in 107 intersections are roundabouts in the UK and Ireland, it is a mere 1 in 636 in the US.
What drew Erin to this wholesome subject? 鈥淭he roundabouts project grew out of a related project I did to find the distance to the nearest pub across the UK and Ireland,鈥� she says. We鈥檝e been there, Erin, and we understand completely.
HEADLINE FAIL!
Failure in headline
The name of Erin鈥檚 website reminds us of a 2009 cartoon by Stephen Collins featuring covers of Vague 杏吧原创, 鈥渢he magazine for people who try to have conversations about science news鈥�.
This is assumed by many at New 杏吧原创 Towers to be a gentle parody of our own esteemed organ at its arguable best. One favourite detail is the cover line 鈥淎RMY CATS! Cats in the army鈥�. This serves as an excellent warning to those writing the two-part gems that adorn our cover to avoid circular thinking, thus creating a headline that is repetitious, in that it says essentially the same thing twice.
A list of the logical ellipses and other headline fails that have graced our cover is inscribed on a tablet in the cell at the far end of the office from Feedback鈥檚 stationery cupboard in which, in more normal times, the editor-in-chief is kept. Don鈥檛 be backwards in coming forwards with further examples of deficiencies here or elsewhere 鈥� not that you were.
Of which鈥�
Robert Milne of Twickenham in the stubbornly extant county of Middlesex, UK, distracts himself from the lack of international rugby to point out a line in our article on the dark-skinned, lactose intolerant inhabitants of Stone Age Ireland (17 October, p 11): 鈥淭he Bengorm population may well have living ancestors in Ireland today.鈥�
We concur with Robert鈥檚 hope that they had a good pension plan. Alternatively, we have just sneaked in from watching Christopher Nolan鈥檚 palindromic blockbuster Tenet. We are now mumbling about a turnstile that inverts entropy and reverses time buried in the mountains of County Mayo.
You can send stories to Feedback by email at feedback@newscientist.com. Please include your home address. This week鈥檚 and past Feedbacks can be seen on our website.
