Beware the killer cows
QUESTION
How dangerous are cows? COWS are the most dangerous large animal in Ireland. According to a study published in the Irish Medical Journal earlier this year, ‘farming is the most dangerous occupation in Ireland and the incidence of farm accidents is rising’.
Between 2008 and 2017, a total of 28 people lost their lives due to livestock in the agriculture sector, with 22 of those being killed by cattle, according to figures from the Health and Safety Authority.
A separate study by Mayo General Hospital found that 138 agricultural workers were killed on farms between 2009 and 2015, with animal-related trauma the leading cause of fatal and non-fatal injuries on farms.
Despite their sometimes fearsome reputation, bulls account for just over a fifth of farm animal attacks (22%), while almost two thirds (65%) are by cows.
Attacks by horses accounted for 3.7% of such injuries.
The IMJ study reported that there are 6.6million cattle on 140,000 farms in Ireland.
The great majority of cow attacks occurred when calves were present, suggesting maternal defensive aggression might be the cause. In a poll by Agriland, 47% of farmers said they had been attacked by a cow at calving time. Farmers are recommended not to put calves and their mothers in fields accessible to the public. Keith Lennon, via email.
QUESTION
Why do we lose our accent when we sing? MICK Jagger, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Ed Sheeran, Phil Collins, and George Michael all grew up in or around London and have very recognisably British speaking accents. Yet once on stage they adopt a generic American lilt to their singing.
Likewise, Adele has a strong Cockney accent when speaking which almost disappears when she is singing, as does Ozzy Osbourne’s Brummie brogue. We see the same phenomenon with European musicians, such as the Swedish bands ABBA and Roxette.
This is thought to be due to two main factors; one linguistic, one social. Linguistically, the very process of singing has an accentneutralising effect. Accent differences are largely created through intonation, vowel quality and vowel length – all of which are affected when we sing.
In singing, syllables are lengthened, air flow is increased, articulation is less precise. Thus we get a more generic, neutralised accent that happens to share features with US varieties of English.
The pace of the music may also affect the singer’s delivery. A person’s accent is easily detectable when they are speaking at normal speed. When singing, the pace is often slower. Words are drawn out and more powerfully pronounced so the accent becomes more neutral. Socially, there is an expectation that popular music will be sung this way. It’s not that singers consciously try to sound ‘American’, rather they are adopting the default style for their genre.
As far as why ‘American’ is predominant, it’s simply because the generic ‘American’ accent is fairly neutral. Such accent neutralisation isn’t inevitable. Artists such as Madness, Ian Dury, Lily Allen (London), The Arctic Monkeys (Sheffield), The Proclaimers, Biffy Clyro (Scotland), Cerys Matthews (Wales) and countless country singers all deliberately articulate their regional accents to varying degrees when singing. Ellen Davenport, Bridgnorth, Shropshire.
QUESTION
What are the colours we see when we rub our eyes? THESE are known as phosphenes. A phosphene is an entoptic phenomenon, meaning the experience of seeing the light occurs within the eye. The word comes from the Greek phos (light) and phainein (to show).
The earliest account of phosphenes is that of the Bohemian physiologist Johannes Purkinje in 1819. Phosphenes were further investigated in 1910 by Hermann von Helmholtz who created a series of attractive drawings based on the phenomenon. In 1928, German neurosurgeon Otfrid Foerster noticed when electrically stimulated, the surface of the occipital lobe at the back of the brain, the patient experienced the sensation of light.
Phosphenes are most commonly induced simply by closing your eyes and rubbing them or squeezing them shut. Generally, the harder you rub or squeeze, the more you’ll see. This pressure stimulates the cells of the retina and makes your brain think you are seeing light.
Phosphenes may be stimulated in several ways including electrical stimulation, intense magnetic fields, hallucinogenic drugs, a blow to the head or low blood pressure (such as if you stand up fast after you’ve been relaxing), exposure to radiation and certain diseases of the retina and nerves. Jean Murray, Perth.
QUESTION
In the TV series The Last Ship, on more than one occasion the captain orders a full stop by reversing the engines. Everyone is then thrown forward as though in a car making an emergency stop. Would this happen in real life? FURTHER to earlier answers, I was a chief engineering artificer on HMS Amazon – a Type 21 Frigate – in the mid Seventies.
The main power for these incredible ships was delivered via two Olympus gas turbines (the marine equivalent of the engines that powered Concorde and the Vulcan bomber).
This class of ship was the first in the western world wholly powered by gas turbines.
The Olympus engines delivered 52,000-shaft horsepower through two 14ft controllable pitch propellers.
From dead in the water these 3,000-tonne ships reached 32 knots-plus in 58 seconds.
As chief on watch in the ship’s control centre, perched on my raised swivel chair, I was physically thrown backward as those huge propellers bit.
The torque transferred was incredible.
Similarly, from full speed to dead in the water in a similar time – a rapid deceleration aided by the propellers acting as giant umbrellas as they went through zero pitch and I would be thrown forward.
They were incredibly versatile ships and, at that time, nothing could match or catch us. B. Lambert, Plympton, Devon.