Stomach magnets can help cows drawn to eating indiscriminately
Q. Quirks of genetics can at times make some people everyday heroes, endowed with superpowers. Can you name any specific examples? A. Did you think of supersprinters? They possess an ACTN3 gene that contracts fast-twitch muscle fibers used for rapid burst of movement, reports “How It Works: The Book of Amazing Science.” About one-fifth of people of European or Asian descent have a deficiency in this gene, meaning they “don’t tend to be able to compete at the highest levels of sprinting. If you look at elite athletes, the proportion of people with the deficiency drops dramatically.”
Perhaps you’ve heard of supertasters who, thanks to a few mutations in key tongue-related genes, end up with more receptors for certain bitter compounds and a heightened sense of taste. This group comprises about a quarter of the population that “can taste things that others can’t.”
And if you sometimes wish you had a few more hours in the day, you might come to envy those with a rare mutation, a single letter change in their DEC2 gene that enables them to sleep nearly two hours less than others without feeling overtired. Studies of mice, that share with humans many similar genes including those involved in sleep, seem to confirm the power of short sleepers.
Still, some superpowers have no ready explanation. Why rapid reflexes, photographic memory, super sight, numerical mastery, and seeing differently? Stay tuned! Q. If you were asked to name some uses of magnets, how many could you give? Were “cow magnets” among them? A. Cows are rather indiscriminate eaters, mindlessly eating anything in front of them, even nails, wire, staples that got mixed up in their feed, says Dan Lewis on his “Now I Know” website. “When a cow accidentally ingests something metal, these metal pieces can get stuck in a part of their stomachs … and, over time, puncture holes in the lining.” Not only is this painful to the cow, but it can also dramatically reduce its ability to produce milk.
A fix can be found in a cow magnet, just 8 centimetres long (about 3 inches) and 1 centimetre in diameter (under a half inch), small enough to pass into the cow’s rumen but too large to go further. There it sits, collecting stray metal, and there it remains for the life of the animal, apparently with “no effect on the cow’s health or lifespan.” And, apparently, the magnet can be reused afterward. Q. The study of animal urination has been awarded the Ig Nobel prize twice this decade: In 2014 for showing that mammals seem to prefer urinating aligned northsouth to Earth’s magnetic field; and in 2015 for discovering the “universal law of urination,” which holds that all mammals weighing more than 3 kilograms take about 21 seconds to empty their bladders. What new research on dog urination may be a 2018 contender? A. “Call it small-dog syndrome”: When small male dogs spray urine, they angle their legs to aim high, leaving the impression that the scent marker had been done by a bigger animal, says Jake Buehler in “New Scientist” magazine. When Cornell University’s Betty McGuire and her team filmed adult male dogs, they noticed that small dogs urinated more frequently than larger dogs and were more likely to urinate toward vertical targets.
Since small dogs are generally at a disadvantage with large dogs in one-onone competition, the smaller ones may make more scent markings to establish a presence without any direct interaction. And by aiming high — some smaller dogs almost toppled over — they were probably trying to deceive competing males, the team says.