The Science of Cows Trivia Quiz

Answer: Smallpox

British physician Edward Jenner noted that milkmaids who had been exposed to cow pox seemed to be resistant to the much deadlier disease smallpox. Jenner had an extensive background in zoology as well as medicine, and this led him to investigate the link between cowpox and smallpox.

While other British physicians had discovered the link between cowpox and smallpox as early as 1770, Jenner did the first practical research in vaccination against the disease. In May 1796, Jenner took cowpox pus from a milkmaid named Sarah Nelmes, that she had gotten from a cow named Blossom. Jenner inoculated a young boy named James Phipps, who developed an immunity to smallpox.

Jenner proved that vaccination was effective and by 1800 it was being widely used to prevent the spread of smallpox. In the 200 years since, vaccination has helped to save hundreds of millions of lives, making Jenner one of the greatest medical benefactors in the history of mankind. The word vaccine comes from Jenner, who designated cowpox as Variolae vaccinae (cow smallpox).

Answer: Methane

Cattle are a significant source of methane in the environment, and scientists have spent a great deal of time seeking ways to reduce methane production in cows. Methane reduction is not simply an issue for the environment, but for dairy farmers as well, because energy that cows use to produce methane is energy they are not using to produce milk.

Scientists at the University of California-Davis have discovered that feeding cattle seaweed can reduce their methane output by up to 80 percent. They used a red seaweed known as Asparagopsis taxiformis. Other scientists in Europe and Israel have discovered that some cows break down microbes differently, producing less methane, making it possible to breed cattle that naturally produce less methane through genetically selective breeding.

Methane (C4) is the simplest hydrocarbon and is widely used as a fuel source globally. However, when it gets into the upper atmosphere it traps heat and is responsible for about 20 percent of global warming.

Answer: Cows have distinctive individual voices

Green spent five months listening to a herd of Holstein-Freisian heifers and analyzing their acoustical patterns. She determined that individual cows have individual voices that enable them to communicate emotions such as excitement, arousal or distress. According to Greene, these vocal cues remain consistent in both positive and negative situations.

Green's research was published in the December 2019 issue of "Scientific Reports." It could enable farmers to better understand the emotional state of their herds. Green was assisted in her research by bio-acoustic specialists Professor David Reby and Dr Livio Favaro.

Remarkably, scientific research has shown that cow saliva does indeed have healing properties. Cows and humans share about 80 percent of the same genes.

Answer: Temple Grandin

Temple Grandin, who has been diagnosed as autistic, has spent a great deal of time seeking to create animal friendly environments in places such as slaughterhouses. Grandin is an Assistant Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. Grandin states that her autism enables her to perceive environments as animals would perceive them, making her empathetic.

Grandin has written extensively on the subject of autism. Her 2005 book "Animals in Translation" is absolutely brilliant. In 2010, actress Claire Danes played Grandin in a HBO bio-picture and won an Emmy Award for her performance. A 2006 documentary on Grandin was titled " "The Woman Who Thinks Like a Cow."

Monique Botha is an autistic psychiatrist in the United Kingdom doing work on discrimination against autistic people. Barbara McClintock (1902-1992) was a geneticist and won the 1983 Nobel Prize in Medicine for her work on genetic transposition. Irene Joliot-Curie (1897-1956), the daughter of Marie Curie, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for expanding on her parents work in the field of radioactivity.

Answer: Japan

The first known cases of Bovine kobuvirus were seen in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, in 2003. As a result kobuvirus is classified as Aichivirus. The virus is part of the Picornavirus family, which includes the common cold, polio, meningitis and hepatitis. In humans, kobuvirus has been linked to gastroenteritis.

Kobuvirus can also been found in humans, swine and dogs. It can transmitted orally or through fecal material, and has been linked to diarrhea in calves. Japanese scientists have done extensive research on the virus, as it has a detrimental effect on the Japanese cattle industry, especially in the Kagoshima area.

Answer: South Dakota

A company called SAb Biotherapeutics in Sioux Falls, South Dakota has spent much of the last 20 years working on ways to turn cows into "reactors" for the production of anti-bodies which can be used to fight human diseases.

Cows are extremely useful for the production of anti-bodies due to both their large size and the fact that cow blood can contain twice as many anti-bodies per milliliter as human blood.

While the FDA has not yet approved the cow anti-bodies for the treatment of disease, scientists are optimistic that cows could be a useful ally in the fight against infectious diseases in the future. Early trials have proven the cow anti-bodies are effective in fighting COVID.

Answer: India

India, where cows are sacred, introduced a new "cow science" test in late 2020. While the exam is primarily aimed at students, the general public can also take it. The test was designed by the Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog (RKA), an agency created by the Indian government in 2012 to protect the welfare of cows. The rollout of the test was delayed due to political pushback.

The RKA has actually introduced a 54 page study guide for the test that includes subjects such as the religious significance and medical significance of cows. The document contains some rather off the wall claims about Indian cows. Opponents of the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi are criticizing the test as the politicization of cows. There is also criticism about the government focusing on "cow science" while India is one of the nations hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many followers of Ayuverdic medicine believe that cow dung and cow urine can be used for medicinal purposes.

Answer: Spherical

"Spherical cows" is a shorthand among physicists for the use of simplified modeling that fails to take into account the realities of well, reality.

"Consider a Spherical Cow" by John Harte, a University of California environmental science professor, is an excellent book on seeking solutions to real world problems.

Computer scientist Alan Turing wrote about spherical animals in his 1952 paper "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis".

Answer: Stanley Prusiner

Doctor Stanley Prusiner, a professor of neurobiology at the University of California-San Fransisco was able, in 1982, to isolate an infectious protein known as a prion, which is responsible for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) and its human counterpart Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. In 1997, Prusiner won the Nobel Prize for his work on prions.

BSE outbreaks were a major crisis for the British dairy industry between 1986 and 2015, with 184,000 cases diagnosed over the three decades. The peak came in 1993.

Krebs, a professor at the University of Washington, won a Nobel Prize in 1992 for his work on reversible phosphorylation. Biochemist Ignarro won the 1998 Nobel for his work on nitric oxide. Varmus won the 1989 Nobel Prize for his work on cancer-causing retroviruses.

Answer: Bos taurus

The most widely known species of cow is Bos taurus, which originated in Europe. There is a subspecies, Bos indicus, which is native to India. I'm hoping that taurus was a dead giveaway on this one.

Cows are mammals of course, in the order Artiodactyla (even toed ungulates), the family Bovidae (cloven hooved ruminant vertebrates), and the genus Bos, which includes yaks and gaurs along with cattle.

Cattle have been domesticated for roughly 12,000 years. There are between 1.3 billion and 1.4 billion cattle on Earth.

Cervus canadensis is the elk or wapiti. Alces alces is a moose. And of course, Camelus bactrianus is the Bactrian (two humped) camel.