March 2000: Vol. 79, No. 2March 2000: Vol. 79, No. 2 |
 RX FOR MORE MILK: WATERBED REST  Cows at the University dairy in Tifton amble to the milking machines; they chew their cud like any normal bovine creature. But where they lay their heads at night is true cow heaven. These heifers lounge on waterbeds. "The initial response is a laugh or joke, but the waterbeds work," explains John Bernard, a dairy scientist at the Coastal Plain Experiment Station. Cows produce more milk when they're comfortable—reducing the amount of energy required to stand means nutrients are better utilized to enhance milk production. Unlike human waterbeds, these bovine beds resemble huge rubber pads, measuring about 4 feet wide by 7 1/2 feet long. The waterbeds are a cheap and effective alternative to traditional straw and sand bedding, both of which are expensive and hard to keep clean. The cows seem happy with the luxury upgrade, Bernard says. "They look comfortable laying there, stretched out and chewing cud. They don't look anxious at all."  Stacie Sutton
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After numerous unsuccessful attempts, Rosemary Forrest began to wonder whether she would ever get the Guinness Book of World Records to recognize the world's longest continuous "Frog Watch."
"Whit Gibbons, founder of the Rainbow Bay project, came up with the idea of possibly having a Guinness Record on our hands, so he told me to see what I could do with it," says Forrest, who handles publicity for UGA's Savannah River Ecology Lab, where Gibbons works as a herpetologist. "I just had no idea how drawn-out the process would be."
Gibbons started the Rainbow Bay project at SREL in 1978 as a way of studying amphibians and reptile biodiversity.
Forrest believes the Frog Watch deserves Guinness recognition because "someone has gone out into Rainbow Bay and checked traps at least once a day for 22 years. On a rainy Christmas Eve, when it is 30 degrees outside, someone is sticking his hands into a cold bucket of water, instead of having hot cider with his family."
The first letter Forrest sent to the Guinness office came back unopened. Discouraged, she turned to the Internet for help, hoping to find a Web site where the record could be entered. She became frustrated when the closest site she found belonged to the Guinness beer company.
Forrest finally located the Web site, cleverly hidden under the title "Facts on File." She entered the record, but was told she would need more proof. Forrest gathered the oldest newspaper clippings she could find, while Gibbons encouraged herpetologists to write letters of recommendations to the record gurus.
After months of work, a letter from Guinness World Records arrived, saying the Rainbow Bay project could now call itself, officially, the longest continuous "Frog Watch."
"I'm not sure how it got the name Frog Watch," says Gibbons. "We mostly find salamanders. I guess Frog Watch is just a catchier title."
Darwinists making case on car bumpers
There's an undeclared war raging on car bumpers across America—a battle between secular culture and religious culture. When Darwin fish meets Christian fish there's an obvious conflict, but speech communication professor Tom Lessl has discovered the driving force behind the battle.
"I wanted to find what meanings people attached to the Darwin symbol," says Lessl, who walked through parking lots in five states distributing questionnaires to fish-symbol displayers. He asked three questions:
Why did you put this emblem on your car? What audience did you hope to reach? What does the Darwin fish mean to you?
Humor was the most frequent reponse Lessl received.
"But frequently humor is a mild form of aggression," says Lessl. "Some of the responses were laced with profanity. Others were more apologetic and acknowledged that the sign has aggressive potential. Really, they want to challenge a religious position."
Many responses also mentioned disdain toward the political right wing.
"There are certain topics we regard as taboo," says Lessl, who believes the symbol war is a product of frustrated communication. "One is religion and another is politics. Since we can't effectively talk about these issues, we just argue on our cars."