So in this month’s issue of Popular Science, there was yet another interesting article about methane gas. The point of this article is to report on recent fidings based on the latest research done to find out exactly how much methane gas is being released in Argentina, at least those coming from cows, the biggest source. Argentina has 55 million bovines. Note: methane is a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide

So it was found that on average, a cow releases 70 gallons of methane every day, but this isn’t the interesting part of the article. Wanna know how they found that out? In what I find to be a bizarre experiment, Argentina’s National Institute of Agricultural Techonology connected an inflatable tank device to a sample of several cows’ first stomach, where methane is produced. First of all, I didn’t know cows had more than one stomach, but how is it ok to stick a tube into a cow’s stomach and just leave it in for who knows how many days, just to see how much methane is produced.

I mean. i don’t really know much about cows and their pain tolerance, but I do know that if I had a tube in my stomach for days, AND a tank strapped to my back I’d be MF-ing evrything and everyone. That sux! I’m totally against animal cruelty, which is what this experiment sounds like to me, unless someone can convince me that the cows were just ‘cool’ with this… good luck.

So I thought ‘going straight to the source’ was a journalism tactic, but apparently if i’m conducting a scientific experiement, I can stick a tube into anything my pretty little heart desires. HHmm…not cool.