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Flatulent cows are not a laughing matter. (Pause.) OK, they are a laughing matter. And flatulent sheep and goats are almost as funny — though not to the chickens and pigs in the pen next door. But pull-my-hoof livestock are a problem too. The emissions produced by nature's woodwind section contain a nasty mix of many gasses, among them methane. Though carbon dioxide is the first gas that comes to mind when we think of greenhouse emissions, pound for pound, methane is more than 20 times more powerful in terms of its global warming potential. Methane doesn't linger in the...

Completely & Quickly Absorbs The Odor Of Flatulence * A real solution to a very real problem * Contains the same type of fabric used by the military to protect against chemical weapons * Even works on top of bed sheets * Makes a great wedding or anniversary gift too

You’re in luck. For their senior project, two Cornell University computer-engineering whizzes recently built a machine that does just that. After learning in class how breathalyzers work, Robert Clain and Miguel Salas assembled a fart detector from a sensitive hydrogen sulfide monitor, a thermometer and a microphone and wrote the software that would rate the emission. A “slight perturbance in the air” near the detector sets it to work measuring the three pillars of fart quality: stench, temperature and sound. Temperature, Clain explains, is critical. The hotter a fart, the faster it spreads. “It beeps faster if it’s a high...

[video. Crack up!] Let’s be honest about this. This video has absolutely nothing to do with the media. Fact is, we’re running it simply because it’s funny. Sure, we could probably come up with some lame rationale that would somehow tie it to the media. But we’re not even going to try. Oh, wait a sec. It’s a city council meeting. So it probably ran on local community access television. Voila. It’s media-related and we now feel fully justify in running it here at IHateTheMedia.com.

The EPA, last year, published its Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) for regulating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under the Clean Air Act. One of the suggestions the EPA made to regulate GHG is to levy a tax on livestock. “The tax for dairy cows could be $175 per cow, and $87.50 per head of beef cattle. The tax on hogs would upwards of $20 per hog,” the release said. “Any operation with more than 25 dairy cows, 50 beef cattle or 200 hogs would have to obtain permits.” Analysts predict that it would raise the cost to produce a...

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Farming kangaroos instead of sheep and cattle in Australia could cut by almost a quarter the greenhouse gases produced by grazing livestock, which account for 11 percent of the nation's annual emissions, said a new study. Removing seven million cattle and 36 million sheep by 2020 and replacing them with 175 million kangaroos, to produce the same amount of meat, could lower national greenhouse gases by 3 percent a year, said the University of New South Wales study. Methane from the foregut of cattle and sheep constitutes 11 percent of Australia's total greenhouse emissions, but kangaroos produce...

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australian scientists are trying to give kangaroo-style stomachs to cattle and sheep in a bid to cut the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming, researchers say. Thanks to special bacteria in their stomachs, kangaroo flatulence contains no methane and scientists want to transfer that bacteria to cattle and sheep who emit large quantities of the harmful gas. While the usual image of greenhouse gas pollution is a billowing smokestack pushing out carbon dioxide, livestock passing wind contribute a surprisingly high percentage of total emissions in some countries. "Fourteen percent of emissions from all sources in...

Herring Break Wind to Communicate, Study SuggestsJames Owen in Englandfor National Geographic News November 10, 2003 In polite society, flatulence is often a social faux pas—especially when issued deliberately. But in the world of fish, group "raspberry-blowing" sessions appear to perform an important social role. This intriguing idea comes from scientists who discovered that herring create a mysterious underwater noise by farting. Researchers suspect herring hear the bubbles as they're expelled, helping the fish form protective shoals at night. It's the first ever study to suggest fish communicate by breaking wind. The study's findings, now published online in the U.K....

PARIS, Nov 26 (AFP) - Flatulence, faeces, urination ... and all that's disgusting, sticky and foul-smelling about the human body and how it functions makes for an unusual but educational new Paris exhibition aimed at children.     "Crad'expo" uses kid's talk to describe "farts, poo and wee" for example, "to dare to speak of things that one does not usually speak of", organiser Perrine Wyplosz told AFP.         Playful though scientific, the exhibition which opens on November 30 and runs until next August does not shy away from "naughty" words to teach youngsters about the body's respiratory and digestive systems.     Using...

I happen to live in the once great city of Nashua, NH (It was great before all the 'Mass-holes' moved in) and tonight we had a Kerry 'Chili feed' at the local fire station.I figured I'd poke my balding noggin' in just to see what was going on,and perhaps snag a free bowl of chili.I was nervous parking my Beetle out front since it bears a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker. But I didn't need to worry much, as there weren't more than perhaps 50 or 60 people there. I did get a glimpse of His Royal Highness A.K.A. "The King of...

In an effort to let all the fellow hurricane watchers have a little break from the constant updates of the multiple tracks of Hurricane Isabel, I thought some might enjoy this. Have at it, Science Majors...The Worst Jobs in Science From fart sniffer to postdoc, the most torturous ways to make a living in science.By William Speed Weed Ah, science! Ennobling. Fascinating. Deeply challenging. Also, dangerous, gross and mind-bogglingly boring. We at Popular Science are sometimes brought up short by the realization that there are aspects of science—entire jobs, even—that, when you strip away the imposing titles and advanced degrees,...

A Norwegian air ambulance crew almost ignored the smell of an on board fire because they thought it was just the patients farting. They noticed a cabbage-like smell which turned out to be a blaze near the front window of the aircraft. An investigation has traced the smell to burning wire insulation. "Everyone who has flown knows that gases arise that need to slip out. It isn't unusual that this happens to our patients," said ambulance chief Geir-Arne Soerensen of Air Transport, the company responsible for the flight. The flames flared up three times, despite attempts to extinguish them and...