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Cow Brains Into Biofuel
beatleadam writes "If the reality of $2.00 per gallon of gas does not scare you enough, then perhaps this will. '...Cattle brains, skull, eyes, spinal column, small intestine and other parts suspected of harboring mad cow disease were banned from human consumption in December as a safety precaution, shortly after the discovery of the first case of mad cow disease in the United States...' The FDA is now funding research aimed at producing biofuels from cattle brains. What about the exhaust given off from cars that are burning Mad Cow Fuels?" It's the grand circle of life.
It, like the gasoline put into the car in the first place, will be composed of hydrocarbons vastly too short to be formed into prions.
Go read up on what refineries do and how they work. It will put your mind at ease about this 'threat', plus which it's a fascinating problem they have to solve. Every day a refinery doesn't blow itself to smithereens is a testament to the skill of the engineers who built it.
Now all I need to do is figure out what kind of cows make the highest octane gas. Longhornds, or maybe Angus. I wonder if milk vs. beef cows makes a difference.
If the cow is "corn-fed beef", does that mean the fuel I'd make has ethonol? If the cows are fed beans, would my car have to be able to run on Methane to use the fuel made from the cows?
Oh, there are just too many jokes. :)
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I am not opposed to looking into diferent sources for energy. However i really dislike the tone of the article. I find it very disturbing how little value people give to life. It is sad that people make fun of things like this. I am not an animal rights advocate but still animals are not simply on earth so we can use them up. and when we do use them for our benefit we should be mindful of the sacrifice they made. the second we are cruel to animals needlesly we begin to lose our humanity and we begin being cruel to other human beings. most serial killer ans psychopaths abused animals in their youth. anyway i was ust upset about the general tone of it being a joke that they killed a bunch of cows because WE were assholes and gave them their own shit to eat while we raised them to kill them to eat them ourselves and now we rea trying to look for ways to turn their innnards into energy.
why not burn our dead people not spawn the bovine damned
?
the horror
.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
This sounds like a set-up for some sort of bovine Matrix, only this time the computers are powered by cow-brains.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Just out of curiosity... It is said that when you move form one level in food chain to next, only 10% of energy is tranferred. (For e.g. if a cow eats 100 Joules worth of grass, then human who eat cow get 10 Joules from those 100 J ). Taking this 10% efficiency rule in to account, would it not be better if we invested in obtaining power from plants rather than from animal's flesh? Am I missing something here?
Can't find it but PETA (I think) did a Mootrix take off as well as a video, was pretty funny on "farm raised" animals stuck in the Mootrix
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
We should really be able to milk this for all it's worth; there's a lot at steak [sic]. Let's just hope it's not udderly ridiculous, as it behooves us to grab the bull by the horns and find alternative fuels. Hopefully this steers the industry into greener pastures.
ok. I think that's out of my system now... Sorry.
It's a Flash animation thing. If you'd prefer a web page, look here: Action Page.
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I've always wondered, is it better to kill a cow without it knowing, or to use the current method of lining the cows up for slaughter?
Stress causes muscles to tense up and prevents the release of toxins from the muscle tissue into the bloodstream. Relaxed muscles do the opposite and are usually fairly clean because of a fresh supply of aerobic blood.
Wrong on two counts.
Cows do line up, but they don't show any sign of knowing that they're going to die. Noted animal behaviorist Temple Grandin, in her book Thinking in Pictures (which is actually about her autism), writes that cows are stressed to be separated from their fellows, but are calmed to be able see one another -- seeing that the cow in front is unstressed cues the cow behind to be unstressed. Except in Kosher slaughterhouses, death comes so suddenly (either by a bolt shot into the brain or by electrical stunning) that the following cow hasn't time to become upset before it too dies. To help ensure this, Grandin introduced curving passageways, such that the cow can see the cow ahead, but only the cow immediately ahead.
As to the effects of stress, you're also (mostly) wrong. Stress causes the release of cortisol, but this isn't a toxin per se. But a standard method in societies that butcher and eat meat immediately, is to chase or terrorize animals for a while prior to butchering, not to release cortisol, but to tire the muscles, using up oxygen reserves, so that lactic acid is released. Lactic acid is a natural tenderizer -- it's that "burn" you feel in muscles when you do aerobic exercises (but distinct from the pain of torn muscles as in weight training, although that tearing no doubt adds to the tenderizing too).
Additionally, in Korea and other countries that believe in the aphrodisiacal properties of dog meat, it is believed that the longer the dog is terrorized and beaten prior to slaughter, the greater the aphrodisiacal properties of the meat.
If you really want flavorful, tender meat, you want to look to the lineage of the beef, to control fat to muscle ratio, etc., and to the animals' diet -- what do you think "corned beef" is --, to control flavor. To add more flavor and to tenderize met, a good marinade is probably a good bet too.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
COMBUSTED
The prions that cause BSE are incredibly hardy and are extremely heat resistant! They can easily withstand 1 hour at 360 C.
IDIOT
Why not just state your case without the flame? Take a deep breath, relax, think happy thoughts.. then post.
Mad Cow disease is a disease of prions - and from here
Somehow I doubt you can made good fuel this way. Besides which I personally still wouldnt touch the stuff even after all of this had been done to it. And that is what I teach my students as well.
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$2.00 per gallon of gas
I really don't know what people are complaining about, $2 dollars per gallon is not that expensive.
This is $0.46 per litre.
This morning, I payed 1.1 Euro per litre, or $1.46 or $6.30 per gallon; a surplus of $4.32 per gallon.
OK, I admit that this is expensive, but the world does not stop and our economy is running pretty smoothly (could always go better, I admit).
Just put those $2 measly dollars per gallon into perspective and perhaps, just perhaps, consider other (alternative) means of transportation...
Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis. You can't simply say, "Today I will be brilliant."