Lasers battle cattle farts!

It’s not exactly “cows with freakin’ lasers!”: the aptly-named Methane Research Cluster is to use lasers to measure the methane emissions from Australia’s vast herd of ruminants. The University of Melbourne-led project wants to improve “measurement and management” of methane emissions, starting with grazing lands in the north …

[Anonymous Coward]

Lasers battle cattle burps

Most of the methane from a cow is emitted via burps, not bottom burps.

(as to which end of an apatasaurus the methane came from - good question.)

[Charles Manning]

Re: Lasers battle cattle burps

Yeah,yeah... but fart is far more titillating for regtards.

[Stanislaw]

Re: which end of an apatosaurus

All this farting makes me think it's about time we changed Apatosaurus back to Brontosaurus, since "Thunder lizard" has suddenly become even more appropriate.

... unless they liked to launch one and leave, in which case I guess "Deceptive lizard" would work.

[Steve Knox]

Re: Which End of the Apatasaurus?

Shurely the gas end?

[John Brown (no body)]

How are they going to measure the "control"

...'cos if I was in a paddock and someone started firing lasers across it, at the very least I'd be doing some extra bottom burps!

[Nights_are_Long]

So my rump steak will now come pre cooked and with laser holes in it, and when driving through the country side we are going to see cows flying through the air powered by there own farts?

The future is here!

[Anonymous Coward]

THIS IS RIDICULOUS

EVERYBODY KNOWS GLOBAL WARMING IS CAUSED IN AUSTRALIA BY ALL OF THOSE ILLITERATE CROCODILE CHASERS DRINKING MILLIONS OF GALLONS OF PISS-FLAVORED TOOTH LAGER AND FARTING OUT THE RESULTS

[jake]

One wonders ...

How long it will be before some chuckle-trousers politician tries to mandate "evacuated non-condensibles" burn-off devices for bovines?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: One wonders ...

Just crank up the laser!

How difficult can it be to set fire to methane?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: One wonders ...

ha, cows with flare stacks.

[Silverburn]

Cows with guns..

..and sharks with frikkin' lasers!

[Captain DaFt]

Re: Cows with guns..

Eh, makes sense... Sharks with frikkin' lasers to measure bovine emissions, and cows with guns to keep the sharks from eating them!

[Anonymous Coward]

crikey

For every cow there is a tourist who would be consuming all sorts of fart inducing shrimps and stuff.

Once they are killed by a drop-bear it all balances out bruce!

[Anonymous Coward]

Cows just got LART'd

Cows just got LART'd

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine my disappointment

When I read the head line my first thought had been that the methan would be burned by the laser to reduce it s affect on the ozon.

[JP19]

if you can’t measure, you can’t mitigate

If you can't mitigate, there is no point measuring.

[Dave 126]

Re: if you can’t measure, you can’t mitigate

You don't know if you can mitigate until you have measured your attempts to do so.

[Dave 126]

possible mitigation

There have been serious suggestions in Australia that kangaroos be eaten instead of cows... kangaroos don't have a bovine-style stomach arrangement, and don't produce methane in anything like the same quantities as cows. Also, they have pads, rather than hooves, causing less damage to the native grasses (which aren't as tolerant of hard hooves as grasses in other continents)

[auburnman]

Re: possible mitigation

The obvious solution is DANGEROUS GENETIC EXPERIMENTATION(TM!) one-stomached cowaroos with footpads and enormous meaty bulk coming up! Either that or inhumane battery farms that milk the gas energy from cows matrix style.

[Dave 126]

Re: possible mitigation

Yep, with all that bouncing yo'd get butter direct from the udder. Or cross the kangeroo with a sheep and get woolly jumpers.

[JetSetJim]

Re: possible mitigation

..and 'roos are quite tasty, too.

Saw the "opposite" proposal to inject kanga-gut-bacteria into bovine tummies to reduce methane output - not sure of the results of this line of thought, though.

[Anonymous Coward]

So...

How long before someone patents the Cattle-itic Converter?

[Bill Fresher]

I'd have thought that shooting lasers at cows would cause them to fart more from fear. Crazy scientists never think their plans through.

[Dave 32]

The cow jumped over the moon!

So we're talking Methane rocket powered cows now? What sort of range will they have? Can they do a translunar injection burn?

And, here I always thought the expression was "When pigs can fly!".

Dave

P.S. Mine's the one with the ultra strong umbrella with it. Have to protect oneself from falling, umm, debris.

[Anonymous Coward]

At first glance..

Laser Battle Cattle, I thought the defence cuts had gone a bit too far and we'd started training Friesians.

First Bovine Regiment, Moooooove out

[Rambler88]

Is DARPA looking into this?

Reminds me of a mention I once found in some military history book of (exact words) "camels carrying machine guns"--one hallucination I hope I never have.

I look forward to the satellite photos of Oz picked out in blue on nightside Earth.