We’ll never figure out why environmentalists are obsessed with cows and their digestive systems. Whereas at one point in time they were studying cow poo to find out what the emission rate of methane was, now they need to take it a step further and attach tanks to cows so that they can analyze their burps. Maybe it’s time to move on from the cows and start analyzing something else, don’t you think? But who are we to talk? We’re pretty obsessed with cow gas ourselves.

A while back, we wrote a post on how farting is a contributing factor to drastic climate change. At the time, we told people to just stop farting altogether (“farting” also meaning leaving enormous carbon footprints). But just when we considered things to be impossible, apparently science CAN conquer nature.

A recent press release says that scientists believe they can stop farting in sheep and cows, perhaps even providing a vaccine to prevent humans from farting as well. No joke. Wonder what this will do for the air freshener industry…

There’s been a lot of talk about what will happen due to global warming, with predictions of both drought and flooding. But there are some stranger side effects that are interesting. For instance, did you know that more lakes will just disappear and mountains will get taller? How crazy is that?!? Check out Live Science for the top 10 unexpected results of global warming.

-Jess 

There’s a new instrument to detect mercury pollution in the environment – sled dog fur.

Scientists have discovered that analyzing the fur of Alasakan sled dogs can reveal the levels of mercury contamination in the immediate surroundings, the blog Live Science reports. The dogs eat the leftover food from the surrounding villages, which contain the varying levels of mercury.

Here’s a scary thought: if the mercury is showing up in the dog fur, might it mean the toxic substance is showing up in the bodies of the human population as well?

 -Valerie 

This news story reports on how Washington and Oregon will start allowing the killing of sea lions in order to stop them from feeding on dwindling reserves of migrating salmon.

Do you think this is fair? Who should survive: salmon or sea lions?

--Valerie 

The city of Seattle has “just said no” to bottled water – at least for their events and employee’s water coolers.

By stopping the flow of bottled H20, the city plans to save thousands of dollars and help stem the environmental impact of all those empty plastic bottles and jugs.

Popular Science reports that researchers at MIT and Boston College are developing a way to reuse old semiconductors to dramatically increase thermal efficiency. The end result: the consumption of less energy.

And you thought recycling was just for soda cans and newspaper…